There is a list of Frequently Asked Questions (with answers), a so-called FAQ, about vi which includes pointers to archive sites. The FAQ is regularly posted to the news groups comp.editors, comp.answers, and news.answers. The version posted on June 2, 1996 is attached here (part1 and part1). There is an HTML version of the Vi Editor Faq at the url http://www.macom.co.il/vi/ -- note that this site (in Israel) is not near the page you are reading.
There is an archive of vi related materials in ftp sites on the Internet. We should probably warn you that some of the archived documents have operating system specific information -- if you are using a different operating system, information about, for example, command lines, is of limited use.
Before you go searching elsewhere, look here for a copy of the INDEX to the archive as of early June, 1996. The things below were taken from the archive about the same time and are identified with the phrase marking them in the INDEX.
The home system of the archive is alf.uib.no in Bergen, Norway, EUROPE. Users in the US should use one of the following sites:
USA, Canada and Mexican users:
Mirror site: cs.uwp.edu (131.210.1.4)
Filearea: /pub/vi
Maintainer: Dave Datta (datta@cs.uwp.edu)
Location: Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S.A.
Peak hours: None.
Mirror site: ftp.uu.net (192.48.96.9)
Filearea: /pub/text-processing/vi
Maintainer: archive@uunet.uu.net
Location: Falls Church, Virginia, U.S.A.
Peak hours: None.
As of June 6, 1996, it appears that the archive at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside
has been moved to a system named ftp.uwp.edu or archive.uwp.edu.
(I can connect to all of the indicated systems with anonymous ftp, but
I'm having trouble using Mosaic to do so on June 6, 1996. The problem
may be that things are slow and connections are timing out, or there
may be something else wrong with what I'm doing.)
If you don't know how to use anonymous ftp, your web browser probably does, and may be able to access the mirror on uunet with the URL ftp://ftp.uu.net/pub/text-processing/vi or the one at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside with the URL ftp://ftp.uwp.edu/pub/vi or http://archive.uwp.edu/pub/vi
I have been running versions of elvis under both Minix and MS-DOS for some time. Elvis was written and is maintained by Steve Kirkendall, (kirkenda@cs.pdx.edu). As of July 6, 1999, the current release of Elvis is 2.1; see the README file: ftp://ftp.cs.pdx.edu/pub/elvis/README.html for information about it.
I can offer no warranty on Elvis (or any of the other mentioned vi clones, for that matter).
If you are looking for a copy of an MS-DOS executable and you have access to Appalachian's VMS cluster, you can get a copy of one from the following directory tree:
Directory DISK$ACADEMIC:[FACULTY.PEKAREKEG.DIST.ELVIS] VER_1-8.DIR;1 VER_2-1.DIR;1 ZOO210.EXE;1 ZOO210S.ZOO;1 Total of 4 files. Directory DISK$ACADEMIC:[FACULTY.PEKAREKEG.DIST.ELVIS.VER_1-8] 00_THIS_IS_ELVIS_1.8;1 CHANGES.;1 ELV18DOS.ZOO;1 ELV18SRC.TGZ;1 PATCHES.;1 README.;1 Total of 6 files. Directory DISK$ACADEMIC:[FACULTY.PEKAREKEG.DIST.ELVIS.VER_2-1] 00_READ.ME;1 00_THIS_IS_ELVIS_2.1;1 ANNOUNCE.21;1 ELVIS-2_1-MSDOS_TAR.GZ;1 ELVIS-2_1-WIN32_TAR.GZ;1 ELVIS-2_1_TAR.GZ;1 ELVIS.HTML;1 NOTES.TGZ;1 README.HTML;1 UNTAR.C;1 UNTARDOS.EXE;1 UNTARW32.EXE;1 Total of 12 files. Grand total of 3 directories, 22 files.The Elvis Version 1.8 executable is in the Zoo archive "ELV18DOS.ZOO". You'll need a copy of Zoo to extract it. The file "ZOO210.EXE" is a self-extracting archive which contains a Zoo executable and documentation.
If you're using Windows 95 (or later?), you'll probably want the version in ELVIS-2_1-WIN32_TAR.GZ. That file is a gzipped (with GNU's gzip) tar file containing binaries and help files for use on Windows 95 -like systems. You probably want to unpack it on a Unix system or on Win95 with UNTARW32.EXE. You should read the *.HTML files.
The Win32 executables for Elvis 2.1 can use long file names. The MS-DOS executables for Elvis 1.8 are pre-WIN95. That means that they know nothing about WIN95's long file names. Use of such programs in directories that contain long file names might do violence to long file names. Proceed at your own risk and with caution.
Whether you pick up a copy here or not, you might want to note that elvis's "home" is the ftp site mentioned above: ftp.cs.pdx.edu