first go into sh
>sh

then run 
>EDITOR=vi
>export EDITOR
or
>EDITOR=vi;export EDITOR
or
>export EDITOR=vi

and that works for crontab -e problem (just shows a number, 4593)
-
when you get a message like: don't know what terminal, TERM=color:
do:
>TERM=vt100
>export TERM
or
>export TERM=vi