Quick search, it appears as though ed is a precursor to sed, which I use all the time. Both of which have a similar context and toolset to ex used in vim.

I have not. But since I learned vi on Linux and Unix, it was using ex as it’s ‘personality’. ed is not something I have dug into.

I do not get these exiting vim memes. I’ve been using vim for over 20 years and it was maybe difficult to remember for the first week, tops.