EDT is one of the few editors on TOPS-20 that will work intuitively for most PC users. It it a typical screen editor and the cursor movement keys will work as expected. However, it also has a line editing mode and this is the default mode initially. One feature of the vt100 terminal that EDT expects to work is the “scrolling regions.” This is a major problem area with most vt100 and above terminal emulators – they DO NOT implement scrolling regions! One that does is xterm. So, xterm works correctly with EDT without any other configuration. In general, xterm is one of the most accurate vt100 terminal emulators. One final issue is whether the terminal emulator implements vt102 escape sequences (controls). If so, EDT will use these optimized commands of the vt102. Most modern terminal emulators do implement these. EDT uses a configuration file at startup. This is the file EDTINI.EDT A sample EDTINI.EDT file is presented below. However, it has to be entered into the file using an editor! Some options are to use another editor (for example emacs). Or, create it using EDT itself (just be sure you are using xterm initially…) and use the CHANGE command to get into screen mode. Finally, how to get out of EDT. While in screen mode, press CONTROL-Z. This will give a prompt. You can either QUIT to lose changes or EXIT to save changes and exit.
SET MODE CHANGE
SET TERMINAL NOSCROLL
SET TERMINAL EDIT
