The first time I got stuck in VI, cell phones didn’t have internet yet. We were a one computer household. I had printed out some instructions on how to modify XF86 configs. I had tried typing out every version of [ESC] I could come up with.
If it wouldn’t have been for VI I would have been into Linux probably a decade earlier. It’s now my editor of choice but it probably wouldn’t have killed them to detect control x and give you a little hint text somewhere.