History of Vi

• The standard UNIX editor "ed" existed on UNIX systems practically since its inception:
• • http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch13s02.html#id2963445

• For a time "ex", an extension of ed was created to support some features:
• • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_(editor)

• When visual text terminals (like VT-100) started to appear, Bill Joy created the "vi" editor as an extension to ex:
• • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi
  • vi had relocatable cursor and one could edit text relatively conveniently with it.
  • It supported all the QWERTY keys as well as ESC.
  • • Possibly because these were the greatest common denominator of the keys on the keyboards that appeared then.