Installing Andys Editor

The usual supplied ae.zip file should be expanded using unzip ae on a UNIX machine, or unzip -a ae on a PC.

You get a selection of executables, and the one to pick depends upon which operating systems you wish to run :-

Executable OS Arch Notes Active
ae_dos.exe 16 bit DOS x86 Hampered by the 16 bit DOS 640KB limit. Yes
ae_dos32.exe 32 bit DOS x86 Uses 32 bit Causeway DOS extender. No
ae_o16.exe 16 bit OS/2 x86   No
ae_os2.exe 32 bit OS/2 x86   No
ae_win.exe 32 bit Windows x86   Yes
ae_cygwin.exe 32 bit Windows x86 Runs under Cygwin. No
ae.nlm NetWare x86   No
ae.efi EFI x86   No
ae_aix41 AIX Power Compiled on an AIX 4.1. No
ae_aix43 AIX Power Compiled on an AIX 4.3. No
ae_aix53 AIX Power Compiled on an AIX 5.3. No
ae_linux_rh72 Linux x86 Compiled on RedHat 7.2. No
ae_linux_rh80 Linux x86 Compiled on RedHat 8.0. No
ae_linux_rh90 Linux x86 Compiled on RedHat 9.0. No
ae_linux_fc2 Linux x86 Compiled on Fedora Core 2. No
ae_linux_fc6_64 Linux x86_64 Compiled on Fedora Core 6. No
ae_linux_fc14 Linux x86 Compiled on Fedora 14. Yes
ae_linux_fc14_64 Linux x86_64 Compiled on Fedora 14. Yes
ae_sun8sparc SunOS Sparc Compiled on Solaris 8. No
ae_sun10intel SunOS Intel Compiled on Solaris 10. Yes
ae_osx10power MacOSX Power Compiled on Leopard. Yes
ae_osx10intel MacOSX x86 Compiled on Leopard. Yes
ae_hpux HP/UX   Runs on systems supporting PA 2.0 binaries. No
ae_mips Linux MIPS Cross compiled from Redhat 7.x. 64 bit big-endian MIPS R3000. No
ae_iphone iOS 1.x ARM Cross compiled on Linux using unofficial iphone-dev toolkit. No

At this time, the author only has environments and compilers set up that enable the Active binaries to be rebuilt when changes are made. So the non-Active ones may be a few versions behind. Often these are platforms that are out of vendor support, or that nobody has cared about for many years anyway. Typically the rate of change is small, and the latest configuration file can be made to work with older binaries by removing any lines they complain about.

Installing AE for DOS

  1. Copy ae_dos.exe or ae_dos32.exe to ae.exe, somewhere on the path.
  2. Copy ae.ini to the same directory as ae.exe so it can be found.
  3. Optionally copy ae.txt to wherever you keep documentation.
  4. Print the file ae.ini, and use it as a quick reference card.
  5. Check that COMSPEC in config.sys points to command.com or some other command processor. This ensures 'shelling' out will work, as AE uses system to call up other programs.
  6. Check that files=10 or above in your config.sys.

Installing AE for OS/2

  1. Copy ae_os2.exe or ae_o16.exe to ae.exe, somewhere on the path.
  2. Copy ae.ini to the same directory as ae.exe so it can be found.
  3. Optionally copy ae.txt to wherever you keep documentation.
  4. Print the file ae.ini, and use it as a quick reference card.
  5. Optionally copy ae.ico to the same directory as ae.exe. This allows AE to have a cute icon when running in the Workplace shell.
  6. Optionally create a Workplace Shell Program Object(s) that references the AE executable. The working directory should be the directory where ae.ini can be found.

Installing AE for Windows

  1. Copy ae_win.exe to ae.exe, somewhere on the path.
  2. Copy ae.ini to the same directory as ae.exe so it can be found.
  3. Optionally copy ae.txt to wherever you keep documentation.
  4. Print the file ae.ini, and use it as a quick reference card.

Note: As of Windows 2000, some newly created MS-DOS windows might have a buffer with a very large number of lines. More than the largest size AE can handle. You can change the properties of an existing Window and the shortcut that is used to start it, but there are settings inside the Windows registry covering MS-DOS windows created without a shortcut, and there is no easy GUI way to change this. We bundle console.reg, which can be run at the command line to set the default MS-DOS buffer and window sizes to 80x50.

Installing AE for NetWare

  1. Copy ae.nlm to somewhere on the path.
  2. Copy ae.ini to the same directory as ae.nlm so it can be found.
  3. Optionally copy ae.txt to wherever you keep documentation.
  4. Print the file ae.ini, and use it as a quick reference card.

Installing AE for EFI

  1. Copy ae.efi to a suitable directory.
  2. Copy ae.ini to the same directory as ae.efi so it can be found.
  3. Optionally copy ae.txt to wherever you keep documentation.
  4. Print the file ae.ini, and use it as a quick reference card.

Installing AE for UNIX

  1. Copy the most suitable version of the binary for your operating system (eg: ae_linux_fc14_64 for Intel x86_64 Linux Fedora 14) to a file called ae in a directory like /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, ~/bin, or wherever on the path you consider appropriate.
  2. Copy the ae.ini file to wherever you put ae. If you have a ~/.aerc file, then this is used in preference to the default ae.ini.
  3. Optionally copy ae.txt to wherever you keep documentation.
  4. Print the file ae.ini, and use it as a quick reference card.

If you wish to improve your terminal support, perhaps to add colour, you may like to look at the sample xterm-color.ti and vt100-color.ti provided with AE.

On iPhone or iPod Touch, a good place to put ae and ae.ini is in /var/root/bin.

Testing the installation

All you need to know to start using AE is the following :-

NotationMeaning
^XCtrl+X
~XShift+X
@XAlt+X

And when the unmodified configuration is used :-

A test which is as good as any, is to go to the directory with ae.txt in it and type :- 

  ae ae.txt

On NetWare 4 and earlier, you have to type :- 

  load ae ae.txt