an editor that doesn't require any esc or control keys to be used...

[John Chambers]

| Indeed, but anything more than a line editor is certainly going to require
| at least some escape or control sequences to function.  I saw that you
| recommended pico, but that requires control sequences for cursor movement
| and simple file operations.

Actually, it's possible that  vi  could  be  used  in  the  described
scenario.   One idea is to look in /etc/termcap on the remote system,
and see if any of the "dumb" or "ibm" entries work.

The ESC key is the critical  one.   I  know  I've  used  vi  in  some
situations where ESC didn't work. At least some versions of vi have a
way to map ESC to another char.  Unfortunately, I don't know what  it
is,  and  a quick check with available manuals and with google didn't
turn up any clues.  Anyone know?  We could maybe ask on some relevant
newsgroup to access a larger set of people who might know.