i will try jed, but i'll tell you what, upon your recommendation, i just tried joe and i must say WOW! THANKS A LOT!!!! not only does it do itself, but it also can emulate emacs, pico and wordstar quite well! it even clears up some issues i have with the real emacs! it implements M-P and M-N, which emacs does not do, something i have been annoyed about since i started using it, and also when the backspace key sends ^H, joe treats it as a backspace (emacs catches it and treats it as C-H, the help character, depending on how your keyboard's set up)!!! i love it!! joe is the best! although i will check out jed too.
I can't believe joe is so good in such a small space, and also uses such a smaller overhead than emacs!
thanks again!