Emacs/Xemacs are a bit "different" for someone coming from a DOS background. But, it is more similar in a way as it is, unlike vi, "modeless." Xemacs is, as it's name implies, geared towards X11 use, but when invoked via 'xemacs -nw' will work in text mode just like regular emacs (which also defaults to X mode these days).
On the other hand, there is nano (widely available) or pico (part of the PINE project), which are pretty similar to your basic DOS text editor.
There are so many Unix/Linux editors out there, I'm sure you can find one that you will like.
In the absence of that, I'll second your suggestion of pico.