Unix and vi Whoever gets an account at a university computer centre can make contact with Unix without being a computer expert and gnaw at the hard crust of the legendary Unix editor vi. To give you an impression of using vi: The basic commands are one letter ones, for example x to delete a character, i to insert, a to append, o adds a new line underneath the current line and O inserts a new line above the current one. Other commands are made up of combinations of letters, dw deletes a word, dG deletes all from cursor to end of file. And if you want to replace a text string in the file by another string just type the simple command :g/old/s//new/g. Or save a bit of typing and and use the slightly shorter command :%s/old/new/g to achieve the same result. In vi, there is usually more than one road leading to Rome, and it is quite sporty to thrive for unconventional or surprising or short or witty or whatever nice command strings. Linda Lamb's book on vi ("Learning the vi editor", O'Reilly 1994) provides a good introduction to the subject on no more than 165 pages (not counting index and appendix). The standard Unix editing tool is small and spartanic and can be used universally. Developed for programming jobs, real vi maestros use it for writing all manner of texts. For novices to the Unix cult, which is paid hommage to in computer science departments and among computer freaks today and twenty years ago, vi wizardry means an important initiation rite into the climes of fine art.