vi and Vim Editors Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition

Nothing like the Original

For many, many years, the source code to the original vi was unavailable without a Unix source code license. This fact prompted the creation of all of the vi clones described in this reference.

In January 2002, the source code for the original ex and vi became available under an open source license.

This code does not compile “out of the box” on modern systems, and porting it is difficult. Fortunately, the work has already been done. If you would like to use the original, “real” vi, you can download the source code and build it yourself. See http://ex-vi.sourceforge.net/ for more information.