When you do this, the cursor will go to the line below the last line in the window and the colon will be echoed there. This causes vi to be invoked in read-only mode and will prevent you from inadvertently overwriting the file. If you hear a beep when you hold down the h key, for example, that means that you have moved the cursor as far to the left as is possible. If you can get this far, then you can create new files. Using your newly created file as a guinea pig, and the following list of vi commands try to re-edit the file, make changes, additions, and move text around.
H move the cursor to the first line in the window.
M move the cursor to the middle line in the window. L move the cursor to the last line in the window. O open an empty line above the current line and change vi from keystroke mode to insert mode. G move the cursor to a particular line. G by itself causes the cursor to go to the last line in the buffer.