From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Aug 3 01:37:22 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id BAA11532 for questions-outgoing; Sat, 3 Aug 1996 01:37:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Campino.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (campino.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE [137.226.225.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id BAA11523 for ; Sat, 3 Aug 1996 01:37:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de (gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de [137.226.31.2]) by Campino.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (RBI-Z-5/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA14023; Sat, 3 Aug 1996 10:32:56 +0200 Received: (from kuku@localhost) by gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de (8.6.11/8.6.9) id KAA29126; Sat, 3 Aug 1996 10:46:15 +0200 From: "Christoph P. Kukulies" Message-Id: <199608030846.KAA29126@gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de> Subject: Re: vi question To: andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu Date: Sat, 3 Aug 1996 10:46:14 +0200 (MET DST) Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: from Annelise Anderson at "Aug 2, 96 03:11:48 pm" Reply-To: Christoph Kukulies X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL16 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Every once in a while I inadvertently use the command :a in vi, and > the keyboard gets rewritten--I end up in insert mode and the arrow > keys no longer work (instead producing [ characters). The escape > key no longer words to get back to command mode. Happened to me recently too and I had to learn from wise people on the list that :a is a feature and you quit it by typing a '.' in the first coulumn. :-) > > If I'm logged in by dial-up I just hang up when this happens; > otherwise I can use another virtual terminal and try to kill the > process, but this simply converts all the arrow keys and all the > F keys as well as escape to a backspace. Ctrl-D produces a > command prompt but nothing can be done with it. > > There must be something about this I don't know....what do I do > to get out of this situation? > > Thanks > > Annelise > > > > --Chris Christoph P. U. Kukulies kuku@gil.physik.rwth-aachen.de