do not use 'ed'; not available on some systems

use cat instead, it should have the same effect
(that is -- nothing happens until input is sent)
continuing travis CI work; getting there

( and failing badly! )
use proper %s (arg,) formatting,

hopefully, fixing older python error
more py25 compatibility

not even sure if pexpect can get as far back as python2.5, but its worth a shot.
display python interpreter version in testall.py