History
Before text editors existed, computer text was punched into punched cards with keypunch machines. The text was carried as a physical box of these thin cardboard cards, and read into a card-reader. Magnetic tape or disk "card-image" files created from such card decks often had no line-separation characters at all, commonly assuming fixed-length 80-character records. An alternative to cards was punched paper tape, generated by teletype (TTY) machines; these did need special characters to indicate ends of records.
The first text editors were line editors oriented to teletype- or typewriter- style terminals, which did not provide a window or screen-oriented display. They usually had very short commands (to minimize typing) that reproduced the current line. Among them were a command to print a selected section(s) of the file on the typewriter (or printer) in case of necessity. An "edit cursor", an imaginary insertion point, could be moved by special commands that operated with line numbers of specific text strings (context). Later, the context strings were extended to regular expressions. To see the changes, the file needed to be printed on the printer. These "line-based text editors" were considered revolutionary improvements over keypunch machines. In case typewriter-based terminals were not available, they were adapted to keypunch equipment. In this case the user needed to punch the commands into the separate deck of cards and feed them into the computer in order to edit the file.
When computer terminals with video screens became available, screen-based text editors (sometimes termed just "screen editors") became common. One of the earliest "full screen" editors was O26 - which was written for the operator console of the CDC 6000 series machines in 1967. Another early full screen editor is vi. Written in the 1970s, vi is still a standard editor for Unix and Linux operating systems. Vi and Emacs are popular editors on these systems. The productivity of editing using full-screen editors (compared to the line-based editors) motivated many of the early purchases of video terminals.
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“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)