DOS ain't dead

Hi everyone,


Over the years of generating code for various platforms (8051 asm, Microchip asm, lots of other micro-controllers), I've grown quite at home generating my source code using just plain 'ole Windows Notepad.exe. I've tried using other text editors for Windows and just end up getting frustrated because things don't flow the way my brain is trained to do things--namely shortcut keys, and as with the case of Notepad++, text formatting doesn't space tabs in the same way as Notepad, but that's a whole other issue.

My real issue is that I need Notepad for DOS and if there is a DOS equal to Notepad in terms of text selection, and all keyboard shortcuts, it's the FreeDOS EDIT.EXE program. It seems to mimic Notepad in every way EXCEPT it has a cap on the size of the file being edited. Right now, I'm trying to edit a PowerBASIC .BAS file that's around 330KB. FD Edit.exe wants no part of it! Can anyone recommend a DOS text editor that:

-Supports large files
-Highlights selected text using SHIFT+Arrow Keys
-Highlighted disappears when arrow key is pressed w/o SHIFT
-CNTRL+C Copies
-CNTRL+V Pastes
-CNTRL+X Cuts
-CNTRL+F Searches

I've downloaded PEDIT and IE and use IE mostly. That's as close as I've come to getting what I'd like to have. I've downloaded and discarded about 8 others. PowerBASIC 3.5 compiler has a pretty disappointing editor too, BTW.

Thanks for all of the help forthcoming!

John

Hi! Looking at the many editors included here:

https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.3/official/report.html

you could try SETEDIT, TDE, VIM, ELVIS, FREEMACS, MSEDIT, MBEDIT or Blocek?

The VI or EMACS clones might be less interesting, but

http://www.braun-home.net/michael/mbedit/index.htm
http://osplus.sourceforge.net/
http://setedit.sourceforge.net/

or MSEDIT, TDE or the Unicode-supporting MinEd or Blocek could be useful. Note that most of those are 32-bit DOS apps, but I guess you do not need to be able to edit your 300 kB file on 8086

> -Supports large files
> -Highlights selected text using SHIFT+Arrow Keys
> -Highlighted disappears when arrow key is pressed w/o SHIFT
> -CNTRL+C Copies
> -CNTRL+V Pastes
> -CNTRL+X Cuts
> -CNTRL+F Searches

---
FreeDOS / DOSEMU2 / ...

Also built-in Dos Navigator editor may be usefull, supports >64k files, C and ASM syntax HL, also has hexedit and disassembler...
It uses old style shortcuts CTRL+INS/SHIFT+INS.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

I’d recommend SETEdit or pico (http://www.delorie.com/pub/djgpp/current/v2apps/pico396b.zip)

There are tons ot ext editors out there. Here's a web site that lists several:

http://texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?HomePage

Everybody has a preferred editor they use and the opinions can get almost religious in their fervor as to which one is "best".

The fancier ones will handle large files, multiple files at the same time, a good clipboard function, _configurable_ syntax highlighting (very handy when working with program source code), _configurable_ keyboard layout, etc.

I have two that I use all the time, one "fancy" program with all the extra features and a small, simple one that is only a few kB (easily fits on a floppy with lots of other files) and I use on boot disks for editing things like small batch files and CONFIG.SYS.

I think you're just going to need to experiment until you find what you're looking for.

My favorite editor was Vernon Buerg's LIST.

There was apparently a version called List Enhanced, which can handle 500 mb files, but it seems to have disappeared into the sands of time. It was very small, and very useful. This is the Internet Archive's cache of his site programs before he died in 2009:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080704121935/http://www.buerg.com/download.htm

, but the versions of LISTEVAL.ZIP there refuses to run, saying it's "expired". Probably a simple hack to get it "unexpired", but I've found no other version of his LISTEVMB.COM program to test (the version which allows editing of 500mb files in pure DOS).

> , but the versions of LISTEVAL.ZIP there refuses to run, saying it's
> "expired". Probably a simple hack to get it "unexpired"

I have such a hack, is it okay to share here?

AFAIK, LIST is simply a file viewer and does not let you edit/modify anything. I use LIST to look at files all the time.

> AFAIK, LIST is simply a file viewer and does not let you edit/modify
> anything. I use LIST to look at files all the time.

Could be, but I'd swear there was a version that allowed editing as well. Perhaps I'm misremembering, but the LIST Enhanced seemed to allow editing.

Another great program which does allow HEX editing (and insertion) is old DOS CONVERT.EXE from 1989 (?), but it writes huge temporary files (swap files) to the drive, and so is best used with a huge RAMDRIVE which stores the temp files. The program itself, therefore, doesn't require any XMS or EMS memory (except for the huge RAMDRIVE!) It's also slow when "updating" after inserting files, but I've used it on some huge files, up to and in excess of 1 GB, using HIMEMSX and the new FAT32 ramdrive recently posted.

Even if it is a bit of oftopic, here you can find all List versions:
https://github.com/sebras/buerg/tree/master/list

---
Visit my personal blog at https://www.javiergutierrezchamorro.com

> > , but the versions of LISTEVAL.ZIP there refuses to run, saying it's
> > "expired". Probably a simple hack to get it "unexpired"
>
> I have such a hack, is it okay to share here?

Better do not. Thanks.

---
Forum admin

> My real issue is that I need Notepad for DOS and if there is a DOS equal to
> Notepad in terms of text selection, and all keyboard shortcuts, it's the
> FreeDOS EDIT.EXE program. It seems to mimic Notepad in every way EXCEPT it
> has a cap on the size of the file being edited. Right now, I'm trying to
> edit a PowerBASIC .BAS file that's around 330KB. FD Edit.exe wants no part
> of it! Can anyone recommend a DOS text editor that:

Maybe The Aurora Editor is for you.

> -Supports large files

Open included 372KB file DOC\FUNCTION.DOX --> check

> -Highlights selected text using SHIFT+Arrow Keys

check

> -Highlighted disappears when arrow key is pressed w/o SHIFT

Make sure, you select "Aurora/CUA" editor style during install. (You can also change it afterwards by copying one or two files and recompiling the editor's macros.)

Apply this change to KBD.AML and recompile the editor (Alt+F2).
Please, consider this as a 'hack', because I just 'invented' this for you now. I didn't test for side effects.

--- STYLE\CUKBD.AML       Tue Nov 05 03:00:00 1996
+++ KBD.AML     Sat Apr 23 14:39:35 2022
@@ -221,11 +221,17 @@ object edit
   key  <alt e>         gotomenu "edit"         // to edit menu (cua)
   key  <alt t>         gotomenu "text"         // to text menu (cua)
 
   // Cursor
   key  <up>            up                      // move cursor up
+                       destroymark
   key  <down>          down                    // move cursor down
+                       destroymark
+  key <left>           left
+                       destroymark
+  key <right>          right
+                       destroymark
 
   // Cursor + CUA-marking
   key  <shift up>      up
                        smark
   key  <shift down>    down

check

> -CNTRL+C Copies
> -CNTRL+V Pastes
> -CNTRL+X Cuts
> -CNTRL+F Searches

For all: check

---
Forum admin

Hi,

i suggest like best sobstitute of notepad (or write ) the VDE editor

https://sites.google.com/site/vdeeditor/

have a lots of shortcuts, can manipolate many kinds of file (e.g. RTF..)

Support a intuitive TUI and other features..

Roberto iw2evk

Milan

Well, the built in editor for DOjS (see signature) does fulfill all your bullet points.
But because it was developed for a very specific task, it does not have a file dialog and does only syntax highlighting for Javascript...


> -Supports large files
> -Highlights selected text using SHIFT+Arrow Keys
> -Highlighted disappears when arrow key is pressed w/o SHIFT
> -CNTRL+C Copies
> -CNTRL+V Pastes
> -CNTRL+X Cuts
> -CNTRL+F Searches

---
Javascript on MS-DOS? Try DOjS https://github.com/SuperIlu/DOjS
Fediverse: @dec_hl@mastodon.social

You guys have been awesome in sharing your sources for editors. I'm going to download a few of these and see what I think works best. I left out F3 for repeat last search. Another Notepad feature I've been missing that's also included in FD Edit. Anyway, thanks to all that have replied!!

Jj

> You guys have been awesome in sharing your sources for editors. I'm going
> to download a few of these and see what I think works best. I left out F3
> for repeat last search. Another Notepad feature I've been missing that's
> also included in FD Edit. Anyway, thanks to all that have replied!!

To make F3 work in Aurora:
1. Open KBD.AML.
2. Comment out line 306 by adding // in front.
  //key  <f3>            askopen                 // open prompt (cua)
3. Insert a new line below.
  key  <f3>            findlast                // do last find/replace
4. Recompile from Aurora by pressing Alt+F2.
5. Restart Aurora.

What a pity Aurora isn't FLOSS. It's such a powerful tool.

---
Forum admin

> > AFAIK, LIST is simply a file viewer and does not let you edit/modify
> > anything. I use LIST to look at files all the time.
>
> Could be, but I'd swear there was a version that allowed editing as well.
> Perhaps I'm misremembering, but the LIST Enhanced seemed to allow editing.

Editing is not mentioned for LIST Plus or LIST Enhanced at https://web.archive.org/web/20080704121832/http://www.buerg.com/list.htm

But file WHATSNEW from the eval version from 2007 reads:

- New commands are available from the File Selection (Alt-V) menu:
        E    invokes the 'Edit' editor to let you edit the selected file;
             create a BATch file called EDIT.BAT which invokes the
             editor of your choice with the optional parameters it needs

---
Forum admin

I really like sved (http://svardos.org/sved/). Super light and responsive with a good feature set.

SETEdit is good if you want something fuller featured and with good syntax highlighting.

Over the years, I've become accustomed to (pico initially) nano's keybindings because of all my Linux work. I appreciated that pico is available from djgpp though it lacks nano's syntax highlighting. Just like pico did in the old days.
(https://www.delorie.com/pub/djgpp/current/v2apps/pico396b.zip)

If you're ambitious, you might take a copy of notepad.exe and run it on DOS with HX GUI (https://github.com/Baron-von-Riedesel/HX/releases)

For FreeDOS EDIT, Bernd Böckmann forked it and fixing bugs now.

For > 64K files issue I created an issue about this:
https://github.com/boeckmann/edit/issues/3

For real mode (not protected mode/DPMI editors), how do they normally handle files larger than 64k or multiple large files? There are only four viable possibilities that I know of: Use what's left of conventional memory (which would probably limit the size to around 500 k), use EMS, use XMS, or use a temporary file on disk. Does anybody else know of any other options?

> ... handle files larger than 64k ... Use what's left of conventional
> memory (which would probably limit the size to around 500 k), use EMS, use
> XMS, or use a temporary file on disk. ... any other options?

Without EMS or XMS, they could generate a list of pointers to line starts and keep only the on-screen part in memory. This would require special treatment for "search and replace all", but for example searching without replacing is speed-limited by the user checking the results anyway

The approach could be combined with some custom caching or pre-loading the next and previous few pages in the background, still without needing EMS or XMS.

As edits tend to change line lengths, you would also have to keep a list of changed areas in RAM, which would get processed both for displaying the file and for actually changing the file on disk when done with editing.

All of this takes way more effort than using a protected mode compiler and enough RAM to hold the whole file, but at least it is possible to edit large files with little RAM.

---
FreeDOS / DOSEMU2 / ...

I don't know if it fits your requirements, but I like SSH ED:

"Simple Borland/WordStar-like texteditor. This is the editor I use for programming etc. The program is only 17 kb, and thus loads fast. Written totally in assembly."

https://shh.thathost.com/pub-dos/

It's on all my startup disks. :)

For serious work (as if I do anything seriously on DOS anymore :D), I use Vim. But that's a behemot. To big for DOS. I have uploaded older versions on Internet Archive, but if you need syntax highlighting, that's only supported from version 5.x. The last DOS version is 7.2. 7.3 could be compiled but it was very buggy on DOS.

https://www.vim.org/

> For serious work (as if I do anything seriously on DOS anymore :D), I use
> Vim.

It does have an easy mode config (CUA-like). But that is by default only used on Windows. It might work in DOS, too.

Sorry, I changed the answer. It seems my additional suggestion doesn't implement everything the op looked. But there is no delete option, so I changed this post. :)

> I don't know if it fits your requirements, but I like SSH ED:
>
> "Simple Borland/WordStar-like texteditor. This is the editor I use for
> programming etc. The program is only 17 kb, and thus loads fast. Written
> totally in assembly."
>
> https://shh.thathost.com/pub-dos/

By the way: TASM sources (w/ comments in Norwegian) are available at https://github.com/sverrehu/ancient-ms-dos-code/tree/main/asm/ed

In 2022 I had some short conversation with Sverre about SHH MENY III. Sources for Borland C++ and TASM can be found at https://github.com/sverrehu/ancient-ms-dos-code/tree/main/c/Menus/meny3 -- You probably also need https://github.com/sverrehu/ancient-ms-dos-code/tree/main/asm/Graphics/scrlow

> It's on all my startup disks. :)

I use Volkov Commander's internal editor for simple tasks.

> For serious work (as if I do anything seriously on DOS anymore :D), I use
> Vim. But that's a behemot. To big for DOS. I have uploaded older versions
> on Internet Archive, but if you need syntax highlighting, that's only
> supported from version 5.x. The last DOS version is 7.2. 7.3 could be
> compiled but it was very buggy on DOS.
>
> https://www.vim.org/

I switched to Vim/Gvim on Linux two weeks ago, but now holidays are over and there is not much time to edit any files.

---
Forum admin

> > I don't know if it fits your requirements, but I like SSH ED:
> >
> > "Simple Borland/WordStar-like texteditor. This is the editor I use for
> > programming etc. The program is only 17 kb, and thus loads fast. Written
> > totally in assembly."
> >
> > https://shh.thathost.com/pub-dos/
>
> By the way: TASM sources (w/ comments in Norwegian) are available at
> https://github.com/sverrehu/ancient-ms-dos-code/tree/main/asm/ed
>
> In 2022 I had some short conversation with Sverre about SHH MENY III.
> Sources for Borland C++ and TASM can be found at
> https://github.com/sverrehu/ancient-ms-dos-code/tree/main/c/Menus/meny3 --
> You probably also need
> https://github.com/sverrehu/ancient-ms-dos-code/tree/main/asm/Graphics/scrlow

The sources in this repo are free software:

> Consider everything you find here as licensed under the "MIT License", no matter what the old files may say.

https://github.com/sverrehu/ancient-ms-dos-code/bl...ee8de2b647c65743c401544e8761886c2f951/README.md

---
l

> The sources in this repo are free software:
>
> > Consider everything you find here as licensed under the "MIT License", no
> matter what the old files may say.
>
> https://github.com/sverrehu/ancient-ms-dos-code/bl...ee8de2b647c65743c401544e8761886c2f951/README.md

Oh, cool. I didn't see that.

Sverre also has some other useful utilities in the repo, including some libraries for Turbo C, if I remember right. And two nice games for EGA: a snake game and a copy of tetris.

> > https://www.vim.org/
>
> I switched to Vim/Gvim on Linux two weeks ago, but now holidays are over
> and there is not much time to edit any files.
>

It's ":q" or ":wq". Just joking. It's a common meme on the net and Reddit: "https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+quit+vim".



Anyway, I kinda fell in love with Vim in early 00s and have been using it since. Super powerfull. And also extensible. A bit bloaty, but not as much as Emacs. :)