The History and Fundamentals of vi/vim Text Editors

This article narrates the origin and evolution of the vi editor, from early line editors on PDP‑11/70 to the modern Vim.

In the 1970s, Ken Thompson installed Unix on a PDP‑11/70 at Berkeley and wrote a Pascal compiler. Bill Joy, then a student, improved the ed editor and later created ex, a line‑oriented editor without a visible cursor.

Because the ADM‑3A terminals lacked dedicated arrow keys, vi inherited the H, J, K, L keys for cursor movement and used the Esc key (located where Tab is today) for mode switching. These conventions persist today.

vi introduced distinct modes (command, insert, command‑line) and a powerful command syntax, e.g., s/old/new/ for substitution and line‑addressing like 3 for the third line or $ for the last line.

Typical editing commands combine a verb, a motion (preposition), and a noun. Examples include:

diw – delete inside word cis – change inside sentence dte – delete till character ‘e’ vis – visual select inside sentence

The article also shows a concrete example of fixing a typo in a two‑line file using line numbers and the s command:

1
hello wold !
s/wold/world
1
hello world !

Despite its steep learning curve, mastering vi/vim provides a highly efficient, keyboard‑centric editing environment that many developers still cherish.