VDO was originally written for the Osborne-1, thus the constant use of Osborne in the following file: VDO is a file editor for the Osborne computer. It is not a text editor in that it does not have such features as word wrap, paragraph reflow, just- ification or pagination. Since every Osborne system comes with WORDSTAR, it would be foolish to provide duplicate facilities. But since WORDSTAR is well known to all Osborne users, VDO has been made as compatible with WORDSTAR as feasible. VDO is intended more as a replacement for the misbegotten line editor, ED, which comes with any CP/M system. VDO uses very little disk space, and can handle reasonably large files. It can be used to create and maintain CBASIC source files, dBASE report definitions, or data files for MAIL-MERGE. VDO is quick to get started and simple to use, while still providing the elementary editing func- tions. 1) Invoking VDO: VDO is invoked from the CP/M command prompt ("A>" or "B>") by typing "vdo" followed by the name of the file to be edited. In this respect it follows all CP/M conventions. The chapter entitled "Learning and Using CP/M" in your User's Reference Guide has an excellent description of the form of a file name. Examples: A>vdo mypgm.asm A>vdo b:glinfo.bas B>a:vdo weekly.rpt 2) Editing the file: Once VDO has been loaded, it will attempt to load the file named on the command line. If you are starting a new file, VDO will not be able to find it and will give an error message. Just hit any key and VDO will be ready for you to enter the data you wish to place in the file. VDO works differently from WORDSTAR in that it keeps the entire file in storage while editing. This means that you don't need extra space on the disk for temporary storage and that you can change the diskettes whenever you wish, without worry! There are also some restrictions caused by the way VDO operates: File Size: VDO may not be able to edit files of over 50K; it all depends on how many spaces are next to other spaces. Line Size: No line may exceed 256 characters. Adjacent spaces: No more than 127 spaces may be adjacent. VDO may also treat adjacent spaces as a single character at times. Just as you do in WORDSTAR, VDO allows you to move the cursor (_) around in the file to where you wish to make the changes. The keyboard is used as follows to effect your changes. 3) Keyboard usage: The arrow keys are used to move around in the file without making changes. The function is slightly different from that of WORDSTAR, being more like the dBASE-II usage. RIGHT - Move the cursor to the next character in the file (if any). Note that the carriage return (CR) at the end of a line is also a character. LEFT - Move the cursor to the previous character. DOWN - Move the cursor to the start of the next line. From the last line, DOWN gets you to the end of the line. UP - Move the cursor to the beginning of the line. If at the beginning of the line, move to the beginning of the previous line. RETURN - If insert is off (indicated at the top of the screen) RETURN acts the same as DOWN. If insert is on, RETURN inserts a CR into the file at the cursor position, starting a new line. (ENTER, in the numeric cluster, is the same as RETURN.) Note that RETURN at the end of the file always adds a new line. TAB - Inserts a "TAB" character. The display has "Tab stops" every eight columns. ESC - Calls up the menu of available ESC functions and gives access to them (see below). CTRL - Held down while entering a letter in order to invoke certain VDO functions (see below). All the rest of the keys (letters, numbers, space) are used to place data in the file. The exact way in which this is done depends on whether insert is on or off. With insert on, the characters are inserted into the file ahead of the character at the cursor position, moving the rest of the line (if any) to the right. If insert is off, characters typed will replace the characters in the file, except for a CR which always gets moved over. 4) CTRL functions. The CTRL key is sort of like the SHIFT key in that you hold it down to change the meaning of some of the keys of the key board. The way this is written is with a caret (^) and a letter. Thus "^G" means to hold down the CTRL key and hit "G". In VDO the CTRL functions available are: ^G - Delete the character at the cursor position. If the cursor is at the end of a line, ^G will delete the CR and join the two lines. ^- - Delete the character just before the cursor. If the cursor is at the beginning of a line, ^- will join it to the previous line. ^? has the same effect. ^T or ^Y - Delete the rest of this line. If the cursor is in column 1 at the time, the whole line including the CR at the end is deleted. ^V - Turn insert (described above) on or off. ^N - Insert a CR. This is needed when insert is off, and a new line is wanted. It performs the same function that CR would if insert were on. ^P - Accept a single character from the keyboard and insert it, as is, into the file. This allows you to place a character (such as ESC) into the file, rather than have it call up a special operation by VDO. See the table below for special characters and a warning note. ^C - Display the next screenfull (scroll down). ^R - Display the previous screenfull (scroll up). ^F - Repeat the previous FIND operation (see ESC operations, below) from after the current cursor position, 5) ESC Operations. When you hit the ESC key, you get a menu of the operations available. At the bottom of this menu there is a handy list of the CTRL functions as well. The ESC operations are performed by hitting the corresponding letter after hitting ESC. If you just want to see the menu, hit ESC when it is displayed in order to return to editing the file. The meaning of these operations is: T - Move to the first character of the file. B - Move to the last character of the file F - Accept a string of characters and find the next occurance of them in the file. The characters are entered at the bottom of the menu screen, ending with RETURN. If the FIND operation is to be repeated with the same characters, hit ^F. You have to be careful here, as the string will be found only if it is an exact match for the one entered. In looking for a match, upper case letters are considered to be different from lower case letters. H - Here is the start of a block of characters to be deleted or written to disk. D - Delete everything from the last "(esc)H" to the current cursor position. In order to use "(esc)H" and "(esc)D", they must be issued as follows: 1) Move the cursor to the first character to be deleted. 2) Hit "(esc)H". 3) Move the cursor forward to after the last character to be deleted. 4) Hit "(esc)D". N - Set the file name to be used for I, W, S or X. The file name, in standard CP/M format is entered at the bottom of the screen. I - Insert the file named at the top of the screen into storage starting at the current cursor position. S - Save the current edited data into the file named at the top of the screen. If this save is the first one after doing a load, and the LOAD/SAVE file name has not been changed by use of the (ESC) N function since, then the old file is renamed to have a file extension of ".BAK" before writing the new file. W - Write a portion of the text out to the current file. The block to be written is from the previous "(esc)H" down to the current cursor position. "(esc)W" can be used to move text from one part of the file to another via an intermediate file. another interesting use of "(esc)W)" is when you are unable to save a file due to a full disk, you can use "(esc)N" to point at some large existing file and then "(esc)W" to replace it with a much smaller one; almost the same as erasing it! P - Print the entire file on the printer (CP/M LST: device). You will be given the chance to type in a string of characters to be sent to the printer for initialization before the file data itself is sent. VDO performs no fancy text reformatting, or pagination. It just sends it out to the printer. You may want to use the initialization string to set TAB stops, for example, or you could store the codes necessary to set it up in a file. Q - Quit. Give up. Abandon the edited file. Do not save the altered version of it. Q is used when just looking. X - Exit. Do a SAVE and a QUIT. L - Load a different file. Abandon the current edited file, ask for a new name, and go load it. 6) Saving the edited file. If you load a file, edit it, and then use "(esc)X" to return to CP/M, VDO will rename your original file from (for example) "MYFILE.ASM" to "MYFILE.BAK" and then write the edited text into "MYFILE.ASM". If you do not have room for the ".BAK" copy on your diskette, you may have VDO simply replace the old file by using "(esc)N" to specify the same name as a new name. If you find, on doing a SAVE, that the destination diskette is full, you may simply change to an emptier diskette and retry the save there. 7) Graphics and other special keys available. There are a few useful characters hidden in your Osborne, and I'm not refering to Thom Hogan or Lee Felsenstein; I mean things like { or } or ~. Take a look: they aren`t on the keyboard! Here is what you can input using VDO: Special characters using CTRL: ^, generates { ^. generates } ^/ generates ~ ^= generates ` Special characters which must be preceeded by ^P: (NOTE: If you are reading a printed listing of this document you will not see the pretty graphic char- acters in the second column, and some of them may do strange and wonderful things to your printer when they get there. ^P^S turned my printer off!) Input Graphic Notes... ^P^A ^P^B ^P^C ^P^D ^P^E ^P^F ^P^G ^P^H ^P^I ....Tab - does not display as graphic. ^P^J ....Not available - LF is discarded by VDO ^P^K (used as vertical tab by some printers) ^P^L (used as forms feed by some printers) ^P^M ....Not available - Actually is CR ^P^N (SO for printers) ^P^O (SI for printers) ^P^P ^P^Q ^P^R ^P^S ^P^T ^P^U ^P^V ^P^W ^P^X ^P^Y ^P^Z ....Not available, signals end of file. ^Pesc SC; used by many printers ^P^\ ^P^- ^P^? DEL Unfortunatly, some of the graphic characters are not available since they correspond either to some value that has a special meaning in an ASCII file, such as ^I, ^J, ^M, or ^Z, or to values which cannot be entered from the Osborne keyboard such as the hex values 00, 1D, or 1E which would give , , or if they could ever be entered. 8) Alterations to VDO. If you have the Screen-Pak (80 column) option on your Osborne, you may change the point at which VDO shifts the text from 52 to 80 by using DDT to change location 103 to be the new screen size. The operation would look like this: A>ddt vdo.com