This is the final release of the original vi taken from 4.4BSD. It had been released in 1993 but the last functional changes had been made in 1985, hence :ve gives this date.

The software is downloaded with

git clone https://github.com/n-t-roff/ex-3.7_4.4BSD.git

and can be kept up-to-date with

git pull

Some configuration (e.g. installation paths) can be done in the makefile. For compiling on BSD, Linux and Solaris autoconfiguration is required:

$ ./configure

The software is build with

$ make

and installed with

$ su
# make install
# exit

All generated files are removed with

$ make distclean

• The original vi never had a showmode option. (showmode in Solaris and Heirloom vi is no original code.)
• PAGE-UP, PAGE-DOWN keys may work on most terminals by putting map ^[[5~ ^B and map ^[[6~ ^F into ~/.exrc. If this doesn't work on your terminal you may need other escape sequences which can be retrieved with infocmp -l from capabilities kpp and knp.
• The documents vi/paper.pdf and ex/paper.pdf describe this vi version in detail.