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Louis RAPHAEL

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Feb 4, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/4/98
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I'm just wondering... does anyone still use the "ded" editor? I read
it was competitive with VI in the early eighties, but I've never seen
anyone talk about it, or found a place that still has it available for
FTP. Any clues?

Louis

--
"Information without knowledge is useless." - MA Whitehead, 1997
"Whitehead's right - this *is* the information sewer!" - D Kowal, 1997

T.E.Dickey

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Feb 4, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/4/98
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In comp.editors Louis RAPHAEL <rap...@cs.mcgill.ca> wrote:
: I'm just wondering... does anyone still use the "ded" editor? I read

: it was competitive with VI in the early eighties, but I've never seen
: anyone talk about it, or found a place that still has it available for
: FTP. Any clues?
I guess that makes 3 - there's my directory editor (not competing with VI ;-),
and one other editor (some sort of game editor). Plus a 4th, I suppose,
the original 'dired', which some people distributed as 'ded'.

I think you're talking about that. It's not a text editor.

: Louis

--
Thomas E. Dickey
dic...@clark.net
http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey

Pete Fenelon

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Feb 4, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/4/98
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In alt.folklore.computers Louis RAPHAEL <rap...@cs.mcgill.ca> wrote:
> I'm just wondering... does anyone still use the "ded" editor? I read
> it was competitive with VI in the early eighties, but I've never seen
> anyone talk about it, or found a place that still has it available for
> FTP. Any clues?

It doesn't seem to be portable -- very V7-y, and generally clunky as far
as handling different terminals goes.

I have ded sources, but of dubious legitimacy, and I have never managed to
get them going on Linux, Minix, AIX, Irix, Digital Unix or Solaris. :)

pete
--
Pete Fenelon ("There's no room for enigmas in built-up areas")
pe...@fenelon.zetnet.co.uk http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/petef/
3 Beckside Gardens, Melrosegate, York, Y01 3TX +44 1904 438472

Pete Fenelon

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Feb 4, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/4/98
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In alt.folklore.computers T.E.Dickey <dic...@shell.clark.net> wrote:

> I think you're talking about that. It's not a text editor.

No, ded was a text editor. I think it was originated by Richard Bornat at
Queen Mary College (as was). Harold Thimbleby (I think) brought it to York;
it was also used at Warwick.

It was mostly notable for hairy regular expressions and unlimited undo.

marr...@grm94.polymtl.ca

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Feb 4, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/4/98
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Pete Fenelon (pe...@fenelon.zetnet.co.uk) wrote: : In

alt.folklore.computers T.E.Dickey <dic...@shell.clark.net> wrote: : : > I
think you're talking about that. It's not a text editor. : : No, ded was
a text editor. I think it was originated by Richard Bornat at

apm@kaa% uname -a
HP-UX kaa A.09.01 A 9000/720 85934152 two-user license
apm@kaa% which ded
/usr/local/bin/ded

apm@kaa% man ded

DED(1) DED(1) QMC-UMIST

NAME
ded - display editor

SYNOPSIS
ded [options] filename [options]

Arguments may appear in any order.

-b select 'auto-break' mode (see LINE BREAKS below). The
'auto-break' mode is set by default except for files with
names ending with .c, .h, .m, .m11 .s, .p, .pn, .out, .mk,
.make, .Make, makefile or Makefile. It can also be set by
the 'b+' command and unset by the 'b-' command.

-b- disable 'auto-break' mode.

-d replay the '.dlog' file (which ded creates during editing) after a
UNIX or ded crash. The .dlog file contains all the terminal input since
the start of editing or since the last 'w' command. ded will find the
..dlog file: you merely type, for example,


[ snip ]

As far as I know development of ded continued at UMIST in the EE&E
department until Mark Ferguson left in the late 80s. It was definitely
ported to hpux as the above shows.

Cheers,

Paul.

-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet

Bill B.

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Feb 4, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/4/98
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Pete Fenelon wrote:

> I have ded sources, but of dubious legitimacy, and I have never managed to
> get them going on Linux, Minix, AIX, Irix, Digital Unix or Solaris. :)

Gee Pete... Good think these OS's aren't too popular! <g>

T.E.Dickey

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Feb 4, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/4/98
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In comp.editors Pete Fenelon <pe...@fenelon.zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
: I have ded sources, but of dubious legitimacy, and I have never managed to
: get them going on Linux, Minix, AIX, Irix, Digital Unix or Solaris. :)
are they large (or online?) I'm curious.

lis...@zetnet.co.uk

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Feb 4, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/4/98
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On 1998-02-04 pe...@fenelon.zetnet.co.uk said:
:It was mostly notable for hairy regular expressions and unlimited
:undo. ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^

hairy in what way...?


-- Communa -- lisard AT zetnet DOT co DOT uk (no spam, we're allergic)
wasted views - that's all they see blue hot blood guilt optic nerve

Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive

Shez

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Feb 4, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/4/98
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In article <6b9umn$g...@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca>

Louis RAPHAEL <rap...@cs.mcgill.ca> writes:
| I'm just wondering... does anyone still use the "ded" editor? I read
| it was competitive with VI in the early eighties, but I've never seen
| anyone talk about it, or found a place that still has it available for
| FTP. Any clues?

Ded was written by Richard Bornat at Queen Mary College (now QMW),
London University. Unlike vi it was intuitive to use. It was the first
editor I ever used which recognised words as opposed to simply treating
everything as characters. By that I mean there were dedicated cursor
keys to move left or right by a word, or delete a word, etc. All editors
do this now, but at the time (1980) it was a novelty, certainly I had
never come across it before. It wasn't until I left QMC and found myself
in charge of a Unix system that I discovered vi for the first time. My
reaction was to contact QMC and purchase copies of ded and all their
other Unix software from them! Vi had certain things going for it, but
ded was almost as powerful (including equally powerful regular
expression capabilities in the substitute command), and much easier to
use. Ded also made a replay file of your keystrokes so in the event of a
system crash or other glitch you could replay your edit up to where you
left off. This also gave it a suspend & resume capability. Now if only
Windoze software had such useful features!!

It has always puzzled me that most WP software, has such crap search &
replace capabilities compared to ded and vi. Even Qedit (which I'm using
right now) has very limited search & replace.

Ded is also good with blocks: you can mark up to 26 blocks (marked a-z
in the screen margin) and do the usual move/copy/cut operations with
them. Most modern software lets you highlight only one block. I don't
know why that is: I used to find ded's multiple block capability very
useful.

If you want a copy of ded I expect QMW could provide it. I don't know
their address offhand but it's probably qmw.ac.uk. As one of the first
(or possibly THE first) UNIX site in Britain, they had some links with
Dennis Ritchie & co, so you might enquire of Bell Labs too for opinions
on ded.

-Shez.
____________________________________________________
If replying by email delete .spamblok from address

Louis RAPHAEL

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Feb 5, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/5/98
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Wow! Didn't think I'd get *this* much of a response...

Anyone have a clue where those sources are archived (Pete, Paul?). I'd
like to see if I can get it working, or at least save a copy from
destruction... :-)

Louis

Kaz Kylheku

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Feb 5, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/5/98
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In article <886661...@sv.span.spamblok.com>,

Shez <Sh...@sv.span.spamblok.com> wrote:
>It has always puzzled me that most WP software, has such crap search &
>replace capabilities compared to ded and vi. Even Qedit (which I'm using
>right now) has very limited search & replace.

I have always suspected that it has to do with the average intelligence of the
PC user.

Pete Fenelon

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Feb 5, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/5/98
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marr...@grm94.polymtl.ca wrote:
> apm@kaa% uname -a
> HP-UX kaa A.09.01 A 9000/720 85934152 two-user license
> apm@kaa% which ded
> /usr/local/bin/ded

> apm@kaa% man ded

> As far as I know development of ded continued at UMIST in the EE&E


> department until Mark Ferguson left in the late 80s. It was definitely
> ported to hpux as the above shows.

Damn -- well, add me to the list of people looking for an ftp site :)

Louis RAPHAEL

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Feb 6, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/6/98
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Pete Fenelon <pe...@fenelon.zetnet.co.uk> wrote:

: Damn -- well, add me to the list of people looking for an ftp site :)

Paul says he's seen the sources... :-) If someone can get them to me,
I'll put them on my personal FTP site - it's somewhat limited as to
the load it can handle, but I doubt that it will be a problem... :-)

Louis

Louis RAPHAEL

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Feb 6, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/6/98
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Al Castanoli <afc...@texas.net> wrote:

: It's been awhile, but I got mine at:
: ftp://ftp.cs.utah.edu/pub/ded.sparcbin
: where there was also:
: ftp://ftp.cs.utah.edu/pub/ded.tar

Cool! Just got it. Thanks for the info! BTW, I'm on a SPARC, and the
ded.sparcbin works... I don't know how to use it, but it appears to be
functional.

I copied both files to ftp.pubnix.net /users/raphael, so that they
have a second home, in case UTAH.EDU should stop carrying it. For
history's sake... :-)

I just looked at it quickly - the only date I saw in the TODO file was
1987... so it looks like it's been de(a)d for a while, now.

Louis

Louis RAPHAEL

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Feb 6, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/6/98
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Louis RAPHAEL <rap...@cs.mcgill.ca> wrote:

: I just looked at it quickly - the only date I saw in the TODO file was


: 1987... so it looks like it's been de(a)d for a while, now.

Had more of a look at it... sure its ded the editor? It looks more
like the directory editor ded, an early version :-(. Judging by the
help menu, that is. So, still looking for ded sources...

Louis

T.E.Dickey

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Feb 6, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/6/98
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Louis RAPHAEL <rap...@cs.mcgill.ca> wrote:
: In comp.editors Louis RAPHAEL <rap...@cs.mcgill.ca> wrote:

: : Anyone have a clue where those sources are archived (Pete, Paul?). I'd


: : like to see if I can get it working, or at least save a copy from
: : destruction... :-)

: Oops... just noticed that the other post didn't make it to
: comp.editors :-(. Anyways, I looked at the CS.UTAH sources, but they
: appear to be for the directory editor ded. The offer to put any
actually 'dired' (I'm pretty sure that was the original name under which
it was distributed - 'ded' was an alternate name that came later, which
was why I chose that one for my own program).

: available sources on my FTP site still holds.

: Louis

Shez

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Feb 7, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/7/98
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In article <6bduip$7...@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca>

Louis RAPHAEL <rap...@cs.mcgill.ca> writes:
|
| Paul says he's seen the sources... :-) If someone can get them to me,
| I'll put them on my personal FTP site

FWIW I've seen the sources too. I once adapted ded to work better on A4
(64 line) terminals. A nice thing about ded is the scroll margin
(scrmargin in the source IIRC) whereby when you get within scrmargin
lines of the top or bottom of the screen it automatically scrolls
(unless you're at TOF or EOF) so that you can always see the context of
your editing. Most editors only scroll when you hit the screen edge, so
you're permanently working on the top or bottom line and can't see
what's beyond without jiggling the cursor.

I managed to simulate this effect with Qedit, which is infinitely
customisable, by replacing cursor up & down with macros that check if
the cursor is near the top or bottom of the screen, and if so scroll it
a couple of lines.

For those who've got copies of ded and are wondering how to use it, I'm
afraid my memory is rather vague. In use it's much like any number of
easy-to-use text editors, although in the implementation I used it
relied on an overlay for the numeric keypad (we're talking clunky old
terminals with no cursor key cluster here). The overlay gave you not
only the cursor keys but dedicated keys for delete char or word
left/right, move word left/right, delete line, and toggle between
command line and text. Like many editors the command line is used for
most for things like search & replace (eg. s/old/new/ etc). Regular
expressions are pretty much the same as in vi. Searches proceed from the
cursor point and wrap round the end of file, ending up back where you
started. (The programming challenge here was finding where you started,
as if you'd been substituting something for a different length string,
the cursor point will no longer be at the same offset into the file.)

The usual "w" and "q" commands work, but "ok" is used to end an edit;
"q" only works if the file is unchanged. To quit without saving the
changes you have to type "reallyquit", although "q!" might work too.
You could also suspend an edit and resume it later with cursor position,
marked blocks, and search strings all retained, but I can't remember the
command for that (unless possibly it's "suspend"!)

Although ded was good, I'm not sure I'd return to it if I had it now, as
it didn't support split-screen or multifile editing, which in these days
of large terminals is de rigeur. With Qedit I often have half a dozen
files loaded at the same time so I can cut and paste stuff between them.
Does vi support that sort of thing?

Pete Fenelon

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Feb 10, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/10/98
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In alt.folklore.computers Shez <Sh...@sv.span.spamblok.com> wrote:
> You could also suspend an edit and resume it later with cursor position,
> marked blocks, and search strings all retained, but I can't remember the
> command for that (unless possibly it's "suspend"!)

Usually, it was pulling the terminal line out of the back of the VT52 clone :)

> Although ded was good, I'm not sure I'd return to it if I had it now, as
> it didn't support split-screen or multifile editing, which in these days
> of large terminals is de rigeur. With Qedit I often have half a dozen
> files loaded at the same time so I can cut and paste stuff between them.
> Does vi support that sort of thing?

Clunkily, with :n and :rew.
Screen and/or xterm are your friends :P

Sitaram Chamarty

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Feb 11, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/11/98
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On 10 Feb 1998 19:52:30 GMT, Pete Fenelon <pe...@fenelon.zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
>In alt.folklore.computers Shez <Sh...@sv.span.spamblok.com> wrote:
>> You could also suspend an edit and resume it later with cursor position,
>> marked blocks, and search strings all retained, but I can't remember the
>> command for that (unless possibly it's "suspend"!)
>
>Usually, it was pulling the terminal line out of the back of the VT52 clone :)
>
>> Although ded was good, I'm not sure I'd return to it if I had it now, as
>> it didn't support split-screen or multifile editing, which in these days
>> of large terminals is de rigeur. With Qedit I often have half a dozen
>> files loaded at the same time so I can cut and paste stuff between them.
>> Does vi support that sort of thing?
>
>Clunkily, with :n and :rew.
>Screen and/or xterm are your friends :P

Very gracefully - in VIM :-) http://www.vim.org

Sitaram
-------
although I mainly use a laptop which only gets me 40 lines on an xterm - it's
still good enough for 2 - sometimes 3 - files in one VIM session.

T.E.Dickey

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Feb 13, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/13/98
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In comp.editors Sitaram Chamarty <sit...@diac.com> wrote:
:>> Does vi support that sort of thing?

:>
:>Clunkily, with :n and :rew.
:>Screen and/or xterm are your friends :P

: Very gracefully - in VIM :-) http://www.vim.org

or even better, with vile (but we weren't discussing that, just 'vi' & 'ded')

Paul Hsieh

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Feb 13, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/13/98
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On 13 Feb 1998 10:38:09 GMT, dic...@shell.clark.net says...

> In comp.editors Sitaram Chamarty <sit...@diac.com> wrote:
> :>> Does vi support that sort of thing?
> :>
> :>Clunkily, with :n and :rew.
> :>Screen and/or xterm are your friends :P
>
> : Very gracefully - in VIM :-) http://www.vim.org
> or even better, with vile (but we weren't discussing that, just 'vi' & 'ded')

BTW, where might we get a feature list for ded? I am currently
developing my own editor, and its starting to sound like I have some of
its features (infinite undo, regex search.) I'd hate to develop
something that's directly inferior to something already out there.

--
Paul Hsieh
q...@pobox.com

Louis RAPHAEL

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Feb 14, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/14/98
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I placed the UMIST ded sources, man page and HP binary at

ftp.pubnix.net /users/raphael/ded.tar.gz
ded.man.gz
ded.hpux.gz

Thanks a lot to Paul Marriott who provided these files.

Louis

lis...@zetnet.co.uk

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Feb 14, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/14/98
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On 1998-02-13 q...@pobox.com(PaulHsieh) said:
:BTW, where might we get a feature list for ded? I am currently


:developing my own editor, and its starting to sound like I have
:some of its features (infinite undo, regex search.) I'd hate to
:develop something that's directly inferior to something already out
:there.

*shrug* don't see why not, hasn't done microsoft any harm... ;> in any
case, a lot of editors have regexp search and infinite undo these days.
one more is always good, and hey, you might have some unique ideas about
things that we can all look at, appreciate, and wish someone would put
into vim sometime soon... ;>

(we want to write a vi for dos in assembly or forth. we have a feeling
that the size could be considerably reduced. unfortunately, it's
currently 3rd place on the outstanding project list...)


-- Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling
you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her...

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