Using FreeDOS - EDLIN

In 1980, Tim Paterson created the original text editor for DOS: EDLIN. Microsoft replaced EDLIN in MS-DOS 5, and MS-DOS 6.x didn't include EDLIN. But thanks to Gregory Pietsch, FreeDOS has its own EDLIN command if you want to use the OG text editor.

FreeDOS 1.2 includes EDLIN 2.10c, but you may notice it doesn't run. The world was not ready for EDLIN 2.10c. You can find EDLIN 2.18 on the FreeDOS archive at ibiblio:

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[gpietsch]

My fame grows! Thanks, Jim! BTW, my last name is pronounced like "peach". ;-)

[jasnmar]

I've been working with my son to learn JavaScript and he's sometimes frustrated with using VSCode as his editor. I sent him a link to this as Edlin was one of the early editors I used. It made me happy to see that someone had documented the functionality available in this early editor.

[sareljbotha]

Thanks so much for posting. I used this back in 1989 on my first 8086 computer. I want to show the kids today how far text editors have come and maybe get them to be a little grateful for what they have.

[TechTinkering]

Great demo of EDLIN. I actually quite like line editors and for text that is naturally broken up into separate relatively short lines such as in assembly language they work well. In fact on CP/M the line editor is my first choice for writing code in assembly.

[drseek]

Yes, EDLIN is very nice and basic. I wonder, does anyone know TECO? It is an editor from the 60ies with a built-in turing complete programming language. There is even a DOS port of this wonderful editor. Btw Emacs was originally written in the TECO programming language before it was ported to Lisp.

[michaelkaercher]

Gaslight. I loved my vi for decades and then visual studio code got me.

[sj]

Your keyboard sounds fantastic! What is it?

[bettyswunghole]

Am I the only one that heard a cat at 13:06? 😸

[dmitriguskov]

Command interface looks similar to msdos debug

[kneekoo]

This editor is nuts! 😂 Knowing the rough memory constraints of the era I understand why edlin existed in the first place, but how well did it handle huge text files? Not that anyone would've written Lord of the Rings with edlin, but even with a "beefy" PC sporting 1MB RAM you'd have issues working with large text files. I think editing would not be a big issue, as edlin could only store the changes in RAM, but creating a big text file from scratch would require more RAM until it's written to disk. Did the editor store the changes in temporary files, not to lose data when the user would write a lot of text in one sitting without writing it? If not, does it warn you when you're approaching the RAM limit? :D

[KayOScode]

I’ve been forced to use edlin on my ibm 5155 until I can get my hands on a floppy