this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
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Awesome. Related:
I really want to try a paper terminal experience, mainly to experience using a line-based text editor to see how having printed output (which you can tear off and keep on your desk for reference) differs from doing it in a scrolling terminal.
However I don't want to deal with vintage analog hardware. I tried looking for modern-ish line-based printers and such but couldn't find anything that could legibly output characters as you type them. Any tips?
I realised only this week that ed is exactly what you would need if you had to edit something on a paper terminal. I always though it was just strange that it exists and is still included with things.
I've seen Linux distributions omitting it now. But it's a useful last resort if you end up with a dumb terminal, and maybe it has a niche use in scripted editing? And of course there's a small community of people continuing to use it for fun, out of curiosity, or whatever. Check out https://bsd.network/web/@ed1conf
Edit: and https://www.tiltedwindmillpress.com/product/ed/
Is ending up with a dumb terminal without seeking one out a thing that can still happen? Unless you're trapped in an electronic components warehouse and have to build your own, haha.
I'm not sure I've ever seen one outside of a historical context. I guess the military might still use them for prod.
Yes. Sometimes terminal emulators or the libraries in use just fail. Plain old print line might still work.
One of the great things of command driven editors like vi, sam, ed, and helix is that they can tolerate massive lag and various kinds of brokenness.
What does kind of offset this is that there's less need these days to try and talk to broken systems. You can often just pull the drive/card or boot from another source and fix the image or something.
Probably still included because ed is occasionally used in shell scripts.
It's good in an emergency over a slow or noisy connection. Back in the 90s, I once talked a non-computer user through repairing a corrupted config file, over the phone. ed was good for that.
Oh man, that's also a good point! A phone conversation is a lot like a printed readout.