Date: Sat, 4 Mar 95 15:03:52 MST From: terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert) To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: backspace now broken Message-ID: <9503042203.AA10355@cs.weber.edu> In-Reply-To: <199503040845.AAA18800@gndrsh.aac.dev.com> from "Rodney W. Grimes" at Mar 4, 95 00:45:57 am
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> > My keyboards do not have any keys labelled ``Backspace'', they all > > have a big and easy to find key top-right labelled ``<--''. This > > implies that most people will hit this key when they intend to delete > > the character last typed. > > Okay, some keyboards do just have the <-- on that key, but many also have > the word ``backspace'' or ``<-- backspace'' printed on the key. I have > never seen a PC keyboard with that key labeled ``delete''. My DEC Rainbow 100+. 8-). But of course, as a PC, it's pretty IMpersonal. That, and it couldn't run a UNIX to save its life (and didn't). > > All this ^?/^H/^C hick-hack has been bothering me for a long time. I > > really *hate* those folks who once broke the consistency back in very > > old days! Now, there will be always a need to stty something when > > logging in back and forth across several systems... But please, at > > least for the own system, keep the default stty settings consistent > > with the keyboard mapping. > > We are confusing stty settings with keyboard key cap to code mapping, this > is the pit fall that has caused us to switch this back and forth. There > are other tid bits in this thread that already elaborate on it. If we are being traditionalists, then let us look at the origin of the delete character and other characters, and the default settings because of them. We can start with the ADM, Lear-Seiglar, Hazeltine, Televideo, and Heath terminals that had control keys that generated ^H, ^J, ^K, and ^L for the left, down, up, and right arrows respectively, and the ^V key for clear screen, AND had a "BackSpace" key that sent ^H and had a "Delete" key that sent ^?. You ever wonder why the vi keys are what they are, or the nethack keys? Well, now you know. The DEC terminals came in. As of the VT220, there was special configuration required to get a backspace or an escape key, and even then they were off on inconvenient to use keys. This was done to push the DEC VMS agenda (DEL) and to facilitate some type of system software (the ESC key omission was for simplification of the ANSI sequence recognition to not have to require a timeout, and that was mostly because the LAT protocol and the DECServer itself screwed up in chunking up the lines in the middle of escape sequences, and timer based distinctions between 'esc' and and escape sequences from single keys. It was the DEC legacy that brought us ^C as interrupt and DEL as the rubout character. The DEL as interrupt is a System V'ism resulting from an early inability of the System V tty driver to recognize a break character. The ^C I agree with; I have use too many systems that took the break key as an abort. It hould not be possible to screw 10 hours of computation by sitting on the right part of the keyboard. The DEL vs. BS argument is, as has been pointed out, pretty specious; it's a religious rather than a technical or a user protection issue. Because most terminals sold today are Wyse terminals, and most PC's sold today have a "BackSpace" key, and because it is necessary to be able to emulate a DEC terminal with the center (insert/home/pgup/pgdn/del/end) keys, I'd argue that the upper right hand key on the main keyboard proper send the code its label says it sends. If you think that should erase characters at the shell prompt, well, then you are free to have it do so by setting your rubout character. Terry Lambert terry@cs.weber.edu --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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