EDITOR HISTORY

...of the vi side of history.

Contents

• QED
• ed
• em
• ex
• vi
• STEVIE
• elvis
• Vim
• nvi
• Neovim

QED

• authors: Peter Deutsch, Butler Lampson, Dana Angluin
• first release: 1965/66
• stands for: quick editor
• developed for the Berkely Timesharing System running on a SDS 940
• sources: https://github.com/arnoldrobbins/qed-archive

ed

• derived from QED
• author: Ken Thompson
• first release: 1971
• stands for: editor
• the original Unix editor
• written in PDP-11/20 assembler

em

• derived from ed
• author: George Coulouris
• first release: 1976
• stands for: editor for mortals

ex

• derived from em
• author: Bill Joy & colleagues
• first release: 1976
• developed as an advanced version of ed
• stands for: extended
• Joy and colleagues got code of em (editor for mortals) from George Coulouris at University College in London
• they improved em -> en
• Joy doesn't know anymore if there was eo or op, but ultimately ex was written
• manpage: http://ex-vi.sourceforge.net/ex.html
• POSIX spec: http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/ex.html

vi

• derived from ex
• author: Bill Joy
• first release: 1979
• it was an actual command that started ex in visual mode
• stands for: visual (in ex)
• manpage: http://ex-vi.sourceforge.net/vi.html
• POSIX spec: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/vi.html

STEVIE

• derived from vi
• author: Tim Thompson
• first release: 1987
• released on usenet: comp.sys.atari.st
• stands for: ST Editor for VI Enthusiasts

elvis

• derived from vi
• author: Steve Kirkendall
• first release: 1990
• released on usenet: comp.editors

Vim

• derived from STEVIE
• author: Bram Moolenaar
• created in 1988 (as Vi IMitation 1.0)
• first release: November 2, 1991 (as Vi IMitation 1.14)
• renamed in version 2.0 to Vi IMproved (December 14, 1993)

nvi

• derived from the first version of elvis
• author: Keith Bostic
• first release: 1994 (as part of 4.4BSD)
• stands for: new vi

Neovim

• derived from Vim
• author: Thiago de Arruda
• first release: January 31, 2014
• manpage: https://manpages.debian.org/unstable/nvim
• repository: https://github.com/neovim/neovim