# TIL: "vi" stands vor visual interface of the \`ex\` editor (2024-02-14)

**URL:** <https://pluralist.net/t/til-vi-stands-vor-visual-interface-of-the-ex-editor-2024-02-14/77>\
**Category:** breadcrumbs\
**Created:** [February 15, 2024, 7:31am UTC](https://pluralist.net/t/til-vi-stands-vor-visual-interface-of-the-ex-editor-2024-02-14/77 "2024-02-15T07:31:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![delyan](https://pluralist.net/user_avatar/pluralist.net/delyan/32/245_2.png) [@delyan](https://pluralist.net/u/delyan)\
**Post date:** [February 15, 2024, 7:31am UTC](https://pluralist.net/t/til-vi-stands-vor-visual-interface-of-the-ex-editor-2024-02-14/77/1 "2024-02-15T07:31:35Z")

</div>

Today I learned that “vi” got its name from the [ex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_(text_editor)) editor. Now `ex` was a 1978 UNIX line editor. (Remember ed?) As the wiki article describes:

> ex was eventually given a full-screen visual interface (adding to its command line oriented operation), thereby becoming the [vi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi_(text_editor)) text editor.

So “vi” stands for the visual interface of the `ex` editor.

Try `ex` on a modern machine and you’ll get `vi` in line edit mode:

 ![image](https://pluralist.net/uploads/default/original/1X/20af4db9c5d0a54405f639500314f4b173285843.png)