Simple vi editor for MSX-DOS2 (V9938/V9958 + V9990)

A simple vi-editor that uses the graphic capabilities to provide a screen of up to 128x30 (V9990), or 85x53 (V9938/V9958 w. 128KB). It can also handle plain 80x24 (SCREEN0).

The editor has been written in Z80-assembly. It uses all available mapper-RAM. Files can be up to ~400 KB on a 512 KB-system.

Usage

A:> vi file.txt  	      85×53 (V9938/V9958 - default)
A:> vi /G file.txt        96×30 (V9990 no interlace)
A:> vi /W file.txt       128×30 (V9990 using small 6-pixel font)
A:> vi /I file.txt        85×53 (V9990 interlace)
A:> vi /V file.txt        85×53 (V9938/V9958)
A:> vi /C file.txt        80×24 (console)
A:> vi /?                 help

Commands

Move: h j k l / cursorkeys, w b, 0 $ ^, G, gg, 5G / :5, Ctrl-F / Ctrl-B. Edit: i a A I o O, x, r, dd, yy, p P, counts (3x, 2dd, 10j), Backspace joins lines in insert-mode. Undo: u (up to 32 actions, also 5u). Search: /text, after that n (wrap). Ex: :w, :w filename, :q, :q!, :wq, :x, :e[!] filename, :<linenr>.

Remarks

• Uses C-BIOS-systemfont of Eric Boon (2-clause BSD).
• One 16KB mapper-segment for undo-buffer; a delete bigger than ~16 KB cannot be undone (delete works; undo does not).
• Line-scroll uses hardware-scroll.

Vibe coded

I learned a new term "Vibe-coding". This vi editor has been vibe-coded: I asked Claude to make it, so I claim no credit as I only had a dialogue with Claude. The result however is useful.

Use it at your discretion (or not), change it, enhance it, port it, play with it, etc... no reservations, no limitations (no guarantees either :-).

Build

sjasmplus VI.ASM