A major milestone for developers on classic Amiga systems has quietly arrived on Aminet. One of the most popular text editors for Linux is now finally available in a working condition! The last version that was useable, came out in 1998!
This release of Vim is particularly significant, because Amiga users can now access a modern editing environment that is still actively developed today. Thanks to Duncan Bowring, this is a reality right now!
Vim 9.1 Arrives on Classic Amiga After 25 Years
The legendary text editor Vim has now been ported in a modern version—Vim 9.1—bringing one of the most widely used programming tools back to AmigaOS after more than two decades.
The port of VIM has been carefully adapted for AmigaOS 3.x systems. It runs on any Amiga with 68020 CPU or better, making it compatible with all machines with full 32-bits 68k CPU installed. Despite the age of the Amiga platform, the editor brings with it a surprisingly rich set of modern features to AmigaOS now in 2026. Remarkable!
Syntax highlighting in Vim 9.1 for Amiga
Among of the most important features, I can reveal that these are syntax highlighting, code folding, split windows, spell checking, and even support for modern scripting through Vimscript and Vim9 script.
These features are standard in today’s development environments, but seeing them on classic Amiga hardware highlights how capable the platform still is when combined with modern software. Interestingly, the port of Vim to the AmigaOS environment required only minimal changes to the original Vim source code.
This shows not only the flexibility of the AmigaOS environment, but also how well the original Amiga support in Vim has been maintained over the years.
Cross-compilation techniques made Vim possible for AmigaOS
The Vim editorwas ported using modern tools and cross-compilation techniques, demonstrating once again how today’s developers continue to bridge the gap between modern software ecosystems and classic computing platforms.
For Amiga users interested in programming, scripting, or simply working with text in a powerful way, this release represents a huge step forward. It brings a professional-grade editor back to a system that helped inspire its very origins.
Vim is Ported by Duncan Bowring using amiport (AI-assisted porting toolkit).
Project: https://github.com/bdgscotland/amiport
Cross-compiled with m68k-amigaos-gcc (bebbo) for AmigaOS 3.x (68020+).
Built with -Os -noixemul (standalone binary, no ixemul.library needed).
Most Important Highlights from Vim 9.1 Release for Amiga
⚙️ Runs on classic Amiga systems
- 68020+ CPU
- AmigaOS 3.x
- 4MB RAM recommended
🛠 Modern editor features included
- Syntax highlighting
- Split windows
- Code folding
- Spell checking
- Diff mode
💻 Supports modern scripting
- Vimscript
- Vim9 script
🔐 Advanced functionality
- Full regex engine
- Encryption (Blowfish)
If you are used to Vim on Linux, then I recommend getting it if you want to help and code for AmigaOS. There are also tons of other text editors out for Amiga, but Vim 9.1 is out now. Support the amazing Amiga developers!
