e3

e3 is a cool micro text editor, and its size ranges from just 3800 to 35000 bytes. This depends on what assembler options you use, the platform, and whether you have a self-compressor.

Basic Features of e3

Besides 'syntax highlighting', e3 packs in all the basic functions you'd expect from a text editor. Plus, it even lets you do built-in arithmetic calculations! If you've got the stream editor sed installed, you can run these tools as subprocesses. That means you get to harness the full power of regular expressions!

Customizable Key Bindings

You can choose how you want to navigate your text with different key bindings like Wordstar, EMACS, Pico, Nedit, or even vi-like controls. And yes, you can do math right inside your text!

Compatibility Across Platforms

The assembler version of e3 works on the 11 most important x86 operating systems. There’s also an alpha-level 32-bit native code version for StrongARM CPUs (Advanced Risc Machine).

GNU-C Version Available

If you're not using an i386-Unix or ARM-Linux setup, there's a GNU-C-written version called e3.c that only uses Wordstar keybindings. But hey, we won’t go into detail about that here—just give it a try!

No Library Dependencies

What's neat about e3 is that it's designed to be independent of LIBC or any other library except on QNX and Win32.

Terminal Compatibility

You can use e3 with terminal consoles like Xterm, Eterm, rxvt, kvt, vt220, and vt100 too! All versions accept a filename as an argument; check out the man page for more info.

User-Friendly Features

• You’ll find a status and input line for entering filenames or search terms.


• A little code in the lower right corner shows which editor mode you're in—how handy is that?


• The cursor changes appearance based on whether you're in insert or overwrite mode (this works on Linux text consoles).


• If you're curious about key bindings, just hit Alt-H while editing—or ESC:h if you're using vi.


• Some computers like BeOS or QNX need you to press ESC first for Alt-key combinations.


• E3 shows dots for characters below ASCII 20h and above 7Fh (except on win9x and UTF-8 versions).

At the end of your editing session, e3 will ask if you want to save your work with something like "SAVE? Ynl"—press 'y' to save or 'l' to save and load new content!

What's New?

This final release has been adjusted to work smoothly with current versions of NASM and YASM assemblers.