Elvis, the Vi Editor, Lives

Here's a tip for those who favor the Vi-type editor on the Palmtop. Typically Elvis will only run in 80X25 mode. However, if you can get a copy of Winsi.sys, an Ansi.sys replacement, you can run Elvis in 18-line, 64-column mode (or any other LX screen mode). Winsi.sys lets you define a window for DOS programs that use line-mode output. Lines will wrap on the columns you define for the window, and output won't go beyond the lines you define. Winsi.sys was written by David Goodman in 1992 for the 95LX, and it works fine on the HP Palmtop and Intel-based desktops. You can even use the Software Carousel "Device" command to load Winsi.sys in just one SC work area.

Once Winsi.sys is installed, you can set up the Elvis environment variables. Set TERM=ansi. Set LINES=18 and set COLUMNS=64. Then do: echo ^[[1;1;64;18W and Winsi will set the window size. (^[ is Escape - from the command line you can enter this as Control-V Escape.) Zoom the display to 64x18. Then launch Elvis. The command line will be at the bottom of the screen, and the entire display will be contained within the window. If it looks funny, do :q and clear the screen and try it again -- you might have missed a step. One you're comfortable with it, you can write a batch file to do all this and then set the window back to 80x25 if you want.

George Coleman , GJColeman@CSI.COM