[Info-vax] Whither VMS?

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Bob Koehler wrote:
> In article <SL-dnUDFmOL_5ybXnZ2dnUVZ_u2dnZ2d at giganews.com>, "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> writes:
>> I had to use SOS early in my VMS career!  EDT was available but it 
>> required a DEC terminal, VT-52, VT-100 or VT-200.  Nobody had realized 
>> before we ordered our VAX, that it required proprietary terminals.  SOS 
>> wasn't too bad as an editor but I replaced as soon as wee got some VT 
>> compatible third party terminals for which we payed about $600 instead 
>> of the ~$2,000 each VT-220s.
> 
>    SOS, which was basically the same as TOPS-20 EDIT, is an editor I've
>    gladly left behind.  By comparison, TECO, which I learned on TOPS-10
>    but found was not as productive as EDIT on TOPS-20, is one I keep
>    finding uses for on VMS.  And I'd gladly keep using EDT if I didn't
>    have such a heavily customized TPU section developed prior to the
>    ship of the supported EDT emulation.
> 

I've used TECO a couple of times with great care.  You never know when 
you're going to mistype something and cause TECO to delete all your 
files and reboot the system!  Alright, I exaggerate somewhat!

There are a few jobs that TECO can do with great ease and that other 
editors do with great difficulty or not at all.  I would not care to use 
it as my regular text editor but I'm glad it's there.