From owner-freebsd-current Sun Mar 12 07:04:26 1995 Return-Path: current-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id HAA17673 for current-outgoing; Sun, 12 Mar 1995 07:04:26 -0800 Received: from inet-gw-3.pa.dec.com (inet-gw-3.pa.dec.com [16.1.0.33]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with SMTP id HAA17665 for ; Sun, 12 Mar 1995 07:04:23 -0800 Received: from tartufo.pcs.dec.com by inet-gw-3.pa.dec.com (5.65/24Feb95) id AA21766; Sun, 12 Mar 95 07:01:42 -0800 Received: by tartufo.pcs.dec.com (/\=-/\ Smail3.1.16.1 #16.39) id ; Sun, 12 Mar 95 16:00 MET Message-Id: Date: Sun, 12 Mar 95 16:00 MET From: me@tartufo.pcs.dec.com (Michael Elbel) To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de Cc: current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: backspace now broken (proposal) Newsgroups: pcs.freebsd.current References: <199503101919.UAA11516@uriah.heep.sax.de> Reply-To: me@FreeBSD.org Sender: current-owner@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In pcs.freebsd.current you write: >Call for consistency, ok. But then remember, it was just syscons that >once broke the consistency of the system. (All console drivers prior >to syscons used DEL to erase, hence they agreed with the ttydefaults.) Ok, for the fourth time: The most important thing is to be consistent. It's not as important what the actual default erase character is as long as the default console driver and CERASE agree. There are arguments for makeing it DEL and there are (IMO) very good arguments for makeing it BS (and I'm sure Rod is more than willing to repeat them. While I'd personally prefer it to be BS, I'd certainly accept a DEL here. This is why I ask the core team to make a decision. There has to be a *standard way*. They chose to make syscons the standard console driver too. If other console drivers show different behaviour in *any* area, customisation or getting used to it is to be expected. >If we're going to change the default erase character by now, when >FreeBSD is almost two years old, of course, one half of our users will >be silenced (the half that used to complain about DEL), but don't >underestimate the other half: ``My delete key doesn't work any longer! >All the time, i'm getting this ^H^H^H shit on my screen! Who did >break this? Now i have to change my .login's on a dozen of machines! >Why did'ya change this?'' Nah, come on, Joerg. It's been ^H since 1.1 now. *This* won't hurt us. >Do you still think it's worth the trouble? It's only that the kind >of questions will change, not the amount. No. Since the BS key has generated ^H for a year, only those who use a different console driver might notice *any* change to the negative. They'd have to do what the rest of the FreeBSD users had to do till a change of CERASE - either stty it or remap their keyboard. You've just given a very good argument for *not* changing syscons to generate DEL but change CERASE to ^H :-) Michael -- Michael Elbel, Digital-PCS GmbH, Muenchen, Germany - me@FreeBSD.org Fermentation fault (coors dumped)