On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 4:50 AM <ullbeking@andrewnesbit.org> wrote:

> 7 Jan 2020 02:32:11 Doug McIlroy :
> > Sam was the first screen editor that I deemed worthwhile, and I
> > still use it today.
>
> I would like to experiment with Sam and run it on various *nix operating
> systems. There seems to be many ports.
>
> Do I need to install some kind of Plan 9 emulation layer (in user space),
> which Sam builds and runs on? Obviously I'm referring to Russ Cox's
> libraries and user space tools.
>
> Is it necessary to have a p9 environment to gain the most advantage of a
> tool like Sam? Or, is it possible for it still to function well as a
> transplant in a new environment such as *nix?
>
> In that second case, what are the well ported versions of Sam that build
> and run directly on the target environment?
>

It is not necessary to have a plan 9 environment to take advantage of Sam,
and there was once a port for Unix that worked outside of the usual Plan 9
world. Indeed, Sam got its start on Unix.

However, I dare say that the best port to use is the one from plan9port:
Sam continued to evolve on plan9, if only gaining incremental improvements
after the early Unix years. By using the plan9port version, you'll pick up
on those changes (though I can't really enumerate them anymore).

        - Dan C.