@82mhz

A quick internet search of what looks like the American story of pumpkin carving is that it came from the Irish myth of "Stingy Jack" and carving turnips. Sounds familiar to the beet carving. So I'm now wondering what the connection is between the beet carving and the turnip carving. Also which came first in the universe--beets or turnips.

I loved hearing about your early experience!

@82mhz That alternative phone OS post you linked looks really good, visually! I like the layout, like a newspaper. That alone was worth clicking through.

@amoroso I'm a vi die hard although sitting here with broken fingers trying to edit files made me realize it actually sucks (for accessibility)

@amoroso

Interesting idea.

In the late 1970s I worked on a shop that used data general novas and the editor was nspeed, a workalike of teco, on upper case only adm 3a's. Teco/nspeed and I'm sure many others are glorified paper tape editors; yank a line, edit in place, punch out, repeat.

Not many years later I switched to WordStar in non document mode but quickly switched to PMATE/MATE which today you'd call a vi clone. Screen oriented, but started in "command mode", top line where you enter commands that operate on the text below, and in the file; it retained yank/punch paradigm as does vi, though like vi by this time there was enough memory that yanks and punches were automated, essentially.

Mate (Mike Aronsons text editor) is probably a few years after vi. I knew Mike but never talked to him about the origins of Pmate. (Phoenix Software sold it. They prefixed all their code with p).

As it happens I have been using Pmate again after 40 something years, building an MP/M machine. It's so like vi in structure it's maddening to switch between.

But to me, it seems like vi's modality is borrowed from those earlier paper tape editors. The oldest one I used was on a Varian 622/I I personally owned, ran it with an ASR 33 and edited text, for parts, as even circa 1977 it was alien even to the engineers (I was 18 to 20). Editing involved halting, and pressing of front panel switches.... But it yanked literally a line from tape, you'd edit with the space bar to move "cursor" etc, the punch, literally, that line on the paper tape punch. Needless tocsay I did not do much of this.

But that paradigm is very old. Nspeed and presumably teco could have macros like we used that would put lines before and after the line of text being edited onto the adm 3 (burned into my brain: control-bB$$) after commands -- no so far from :., $s/expression/ on the bottom line of vi or the top line of Pmate.

@amoroso
I don't see it as modes... The i command is just a very long command that ends with escape. Just like in ed where it is a multiline command that ends with . alone on a line.

And if you keep insisting, then Emacs does have modes. After a ^X for example all keys suddenly mean a different thing.

@inlovewithpda That is a GLORIOUS photo. I immediately had grabby hands.

@inlovewithpda The most attractive part here is the displays. Only external light source is needed, and on sunny days it's a glorious experience. (better for your eyes than any backlight)

@82mhz

For over 10 years I used to go on a 8-day silent retreat once a year. I would talk with my spiritual director once a day for an hour. The only reading was the printed sheets she gave me that contained some meditations I was to do. No other reading, no music, no talking. But I could go swimming in the lake or row a boat or take long walks or bike rides. I can relate to your experience away from the web and phone. Finding that inner silence does wonders. If I were to do what you did these days, it would be similar to those retreat days I think. Something to consider.