Tech flashback - text editing [Purp]

Everyone uses a text editor of some sort, right? They've been around forever but seem to have gotten rather ummm...the German word would be Zaftig, perhaps even more than just Zaftig...

Its coming on 25 years now since I discovered this little gem of a plain text editor Sam Wilmott wrote. I even sent him some cash way back when because I was so impressed with its power/size ratio and its RAW FREAKING SPEED. I used it for many years while working at IBM. This tiny little editor (well under 20K), packed more functionality per byte than almost any piece of software I've ever seen. When other editors (like BRIEF) had text dribbling across a screen on an old 4.77mhz 8088 when you leaned on the PgDn key, SLED would make it fly by in a blur.

I continue to use it to this day occasionally (along with BRIEF) for plain text editing.

If you'd like to experience what a real software craftsman can do with a bit of code no larger than most avatar graphics images, download SLED and give it a try. Bits don't rot -- its every bit as good today as it was back in 1987, and that was very good indeed.

You can download SLED here. Its a plain DOS app, but will run fine under any version of Windows or anything that has a DOS emulation.

posted by Open Blogger at 07:10 PM

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