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PDP-10 Archives
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manuals/sedlet.txt
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Thank you for your interest in SED, the screen editor. Here is
your tape back.
NOTE
This is the first release of a new version of SED, which
includes many new features and a couple of new commands (JUSTIFY
and MARKER). I will eventually replace the old version with the new
one and distribute only the former, but for the time being, to
guard against my carelessness, I am distributing the old SED files
(which are up-to-date in bug fixes but are missing the new
features) as the save set EDITOR, and the new SED files as the save
set NEWSED. Hopefully NEWSED contains everything you need and you
can ignore EDITOR. But if a file is missing on NEWSED you will find
it in EDITOR.
Also, if the stuff in NEWSED doesn't work you can always drop
back to EDITOR and be better off than you were before you got the
tape. But the NEWSED version has been running at Digital for close
to a year now, so it should be reliable.
At the end of this note is a partial list of the new features in
NEWSED. If you want to know *everything* that's been done to it,
see SED.SHF.
WHAT THE TAPE IS LIKE
The tape is in BACKUP/DUMPER interchange format, 9 track, either
1600 or 800 BPI. If you didn't say what you wanted, it's 1600.
If you are a TOPS-10 site you might "size copy error" messages
when reading the tape. You can ignore them. The tape was written on
a TOPS-20 system, and DUMPER doesn't save the file size correctly
sometimes. But the tape reads O.K. despite the complaint.
The tape contains not only editor files, but also a binary file
editor, a couple of disassemblers, and an improved version of
RUNOFF. The binary editor looks at a file as a stream of data words
and can do SOS-like things to it. The disassemblers are programs
which convert from .REL and .EXE files to MACRO. I've included
RUNOFF mainly because it must be used to generate the SED
documentation if you change it. It's also the best RUNOFF I've seen
(with good documentation, too).
There are ten save sets on the tape, named NEWSED, EDITOR,
BITED, DISASS, RUNOFF, NEWSED1, EDITOR1, BITED1, DISASS1, and
RUNOFF1. The second five are copies of the first five, in case
there are errors on the tape.
WHAT THE EDITOR FILES ARE LIKE
The editor save sets (NEWSED and EDITOR) contain all the SED
files that exist. The file SED.DIR is a directory and a brief
description of each of those files. If you are unfamiliar with SED
I recommend that you print and read the documentation files
SED.MEM, SED.MAN, and SED.DOC, which are the installation manual,
the tutorial guide, and the reference manual.
You can catch up on the latest developments by reading SED.SHF,
the edit history file. If you know the edit level of your previous
version you can find out exactly what has been done since that
version by looking at the edits which are greater than that edit
level.
Before you assemble SED there is a switch that you need to think
about. If you are running TOPS-10 and you have never seen SED
before, those switches are set correctly already, so you can skip
these two paragraphs. If you are running TOPS-20 then look in
SEDSYM.MAC for the line
TOPS10==1
and set the "1" to a "0". This will give you JSYS monitor calls
instead of UUO's.
GENERATING SED
The next step is to generate an editor which will run of your
terminals. Log into the area which contains the SED source files
(*.MAC) and SED.CMD. If you have a terminal or terminals which are
defined in SEDTTY.MAC then the job is almost done: just set the
switch(es) for your terminal(s) at the start of SEDTTY and type the
following commands:
TOPS10: TOPS20:
.COM SEDSYM @COM SEDSYM
.LOA SEDTTY,@SED @LOA SEDTTY,@SED
.SS SED @SAVE SED
and you're in business. NOTE: The order of the files is important:
the terminal dependent file MUST precede SED.MAC.
For other terminals, see the installation guide, SED.MEM, and
the file SEDTTY.MAC.
GENERATING THE DOCUMENTATION
SED.MAN and SED.DOC are the tutorial guide and the reference
manual, respectively. The former contains step-by-step instructions
for learning SED; the latter describes all of SED's features (many
more than does the tutorial), but is hard to read unless you
already know how to use the editor.
Both manuals are programmable by the installer; that is, the
terminal keys which invoke the commands can be easily changed to
reflect any desired layout. They currently reflect the keyboard
layout of a VT52 and/or VT100 on a TOPS10 system. If that's what
you want you can use then as is.
If you want to generate TOPS-20 documentation, run SEDRNO (which
is a version of RUNOFF) and type:
RU SEDRNO
*SED.RND/VAR:TOPS20/CR
*SED.RNM/VAR:TOPS20/CR
*
If you want to change ("program") the documentation so it
reflects the keyboard layout of your favorite terminal, read the
RUNOFF documentation on macros, and re-define the macros at the
start of SED.RND and SED.RNM. Then run SEDRNO and re-compile the
two documents (using the /VAR:TOPS20 switch for TOPS-20 and the /CR
switch for either operating system).
A VERY IMPORTANT POINT THAT'S PROBABLY UNDEREMPHASIZED
If your terminal runs at 9600 baud you may be plagued by XON's
and XOFF's (Control-Q's and Control-S's sent by the terminal). If
the terminal thinks it's receiving data faster than it can handle
it, it might send an XOFF to the driving program, and then an XON
when it is ready again. Unfortunately, it is very difficult for SED
to distinguish these terminal-sent characters from the user-typed
commands Control-S and Control-Q.
If your terminal sends XON's and XOFF's, I recommend that you
set the NPG flag in the terminal output table, which will disable
Control-Q and Control-S as commands. Those two control characters
then cannot be used by SED. This will let XON's and XOFF's be
handled by the monitor, which will process them properly. If all
this is confusing, well, read SED.MEM, which will tell you what
it's all about.
KEYBOARD LAYOUT FILES
A few terminal configurations have keyboard layout files,
SED???.KYS, which contain a lineprinter picture of how SED's
commands are laid out on that terminal. Usually there are two sets
of layouts, with and without NPG set (to handle XON and XOFF as
described in the previous section). The difference between the two
layouts is that some commands are moved around to make up for the
loss of Control-S and Control-Q.
If you have any comments, suggestions, or complaints, please let
me know.
Mark Pratt
MRO1-2/L10
Digital Equipment Corp.
200 Forest Street
Marlborough, Mass 01752
POSTSCRIPT
(PARTIAL) LIST OF NEW FEATURES IN NEWSED
o New commands:
<JUSTIFY> (fill, nofill, or center - see switches below).
<MARKER> Marks places in files to return to them easily.
Also, keeps a stack of "interesting" former locations.
o New switches:
/FILL set FILL/NOFILL for JUSTIFY
/PIND:n set JUSTIFY's paragraph indentation
/JPRE:s set JUSTIFY's line prefix
/EXT:e1,e2 set the default extension table to be e1,e2
/FENCE set up normal e-o-file fence. /NOFENCE sets up a short one.
/SCROLL allow CURSOR-UP and -DOWN to scroll the screen
/SLIDE:n set default slide amount to n
/GREAD treat every file edited as read-only
/MESSAG suppress the initial and "this file is..." messages
/TRAIL /TRAIL prevents trailing spaces and tabs from
being deleted when the file is saved (Note: don't
set /TRAIL as your default; use it for exceptions).
/DELIM: declares a set of additional delimiters for word-wise
tabs (#).
o Other:
If /READ is set, don't ever save the file.
Remember the setting of /READ across editing sessions.
Delete the journal on a successful exit.
Allow <ENTER><REWRITE> to rewrite the screen centering the
line the cursor is on.
Allow /TSET: to take multiple arguments. /TSET:4,12,50 sets
three tabs, at the given columns.
Successive <DELETE-LINES>s append to the delete buffer.
Make /ID:s1,s2 start the ID line with comment string s1 and
optionally end with string s2.
/NOMESS suppresses the "Parm defined by cursor movement" message,
in addition to suppressing the cheery message.
When running SED or setting to a new file, the names of the current
and alternate file are displayed on the bottom line.