Those of you who have been around Irreal for a while know that I never enlisted in the Vi/Emacs wars. Indeed, I have decades of experience with both and hold each in the highest regard. For a long time now, when people say “Vi”, they probably mean “Vim” so the Vi story necessarily includes that of Vim as well.
Gustavo Pezzi has a nice post on the history of Vi and Vim. Most Vi users probably know that Bill Joy extended the ex editor by giving it a “VIsual” mode but far fewer of those users know the history of Vim. It was, in fact, originally written as a port of Vi to the Commodore Amiga and “Vim” originally stood for “Vi IMitation”.
Pezzi’s post also takes a look at STEVIE and Elvis, two other Vi clones. The reason for all the clones was that Vi shared its code with ex, which was, in turn, an extension of ed, the Unix standard editor that was, technically, available only to those with an AT&T license.
Another interesting story is that Steve Kirkendall started writing Elvis after STEVIE crashed causing him to lose several hours of work. That reminded me of the old days when crashes were frequent and one of the editor mantras was “Save early and often.” Happily those days are long gone and not even the gray beards bother saving their files frequently anymore.
If you’re a Vi/Vim user or have any interest in the history of such things, take a look at Pezzi’s post. It’s an interesting trip into the past.