I'm sorry but you keep saying that you can't do things that are eminently possible.
You can install vim and unison on an iPod. If you jailbreak an iPod you can get a full compile stack from cydia.
As for a printer, that's not what we were talking about. You seem to have made an apples (no pun intended) to oranges argument. Of course you're subject to the limitations of whatever OS you're dealing with. Printers that provide SSH access do so to allow you to securely administrate the printer, not to run vim. That's not to say that you can't run vim on a CUPS print server box and do what you want that way.
You can install vim and unison on an iPod. If you jailbreak an iPod you can get a full compile stack from cydia.
As for a printer, that's not what we were talking about. You seem to have made an apples (no pun intended) to oranges argument. Of course you're subject to the limitations of whatever OS you're dealing with. Printers that provide SSH access do so to allow you to securely administrate the printer, not to run vim. That's not to say that you can't run vim on a CUPS print server box and do what you want that way.