Have you seen this? https://github.com/microsoft/edit

Thanks, I haven't. I am not sure it builds into a DOS EXE though, rust and all the cool stuff that is.
E: Found this fairly recent discussion elsewhere, so trying some of the recommendations there...

Just in case anyone else would find this useful:

Back in late 1970s-early80s I was doing a LOT of work on DEC VAX systems, and
became very familier with their EDT visual editor which I liked more than any
other editor I'd used. So much so that I wrote my own "EDT" which became (and
still is) the primary text editor I use:

1Use: edt <file> [c=initial_cmd -interactive_help -video_inhibit]
2
3for interactive help:   F10 'H' F10

It is *NOT* a "fancy" editor and does not have a lot of on-screen prompts or
fields. It just shows a section (25 lines) of text exactly as it will appear
in the final file - like writing on a piece of papar!

Here is the content of it's Help screen - '{}' denote key codes I had to add
for certain systems where ^(control) of special keys was not available:

1Special keys                     Commands                 Line ranges
2------------                     --------                 -----------
3PgDn  =Page forward              C =Copy line(s)          * =Current line
4PgUp  =Page backward             D =Delete line(s)        / =Entire file
5^PgUp =Start of file {F11}       F =File info             n =line # (1+)
6^PgDn =End of file   {F12}      nH =Set Htab size         0 =End of file
7Home  =Start of line             I =Insert new line(s)    = =Tagged lines
8End   =End of line               L =List (unformatted)  r,r =range to range
9F8    =Redraw screen             M =Move line(s)
10^Left =Word right    {sF3}       P =Print (formatted)
11^Right=Word left     {sF4}       Q =Quit editor
12INS   =Insert/Overwrite         QQ =Quit with no save
13DEL   =Delete character      Rfile =Read & insert file   Examples:
14BKSPC =Delete previous   S/old/new =Substitute text      ---------
15F1    =EOL display               T =Tag lines             D
16F2    =Cursor position           V =Visual mode       1,10C
17F3    =Move line to top    W[file] =Write file           =M
18F4    =Tag line(s)         X[file] =eXit/write file      0Rmy.fil
19F5    =Del to end of line    ?text =Search for text      /Wmy.fil
20F6    =Del end of line      $[cmd] =Execute OS command
21F7    =Insert deleted line  (null) =Move to line range
22F10   =Line mode command
23F9    =Re-execute command

I have ported this editor to DOS(16-bit), Windows(32-bit), various flavors of
Unix/Linux, my own DVM virtual machine, my own CUBIX (6809) OS, and others.
The source code is in C, and I've kept it very portable.

Compiled DOS/Win32 versions as well as the source code are available on my
site. There is of course much more complete documentation.

It may take a little "getting used to", but IMHO well worth it - I can't tell
you how wonderful it is to have the SAME (and capable) text editor on all the
systems I work on!

The DOS version is 11k - more capable/smaller than EDLIN(12k) and *much*
smaller than DOSs std EDIT/QBASIC(200k) - makes it very suitable to include
on test/diagnostic boot floppies. (I just looked an W98 EDIT.COM is about 70k
- presumably doesn't need QBASIC like the DOS one)

BTW/FWIW - I wrote this posting (and most of my others) in DosBox using EDT
and copy/paste it into VOGONs