Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 20:19:56 +0100 (MET) From: J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de> To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD-current users) Subject: Re: backspace now broken (proposal) Message-ID: <199503101919.UAA11516@uriah.heep.sax.de> In-Reply-To: <m0rn1MH-000Pa0C@tartufo.pcs.dec.com> from "Michael Elbel" at Mar 10, 95 10:51:00 am
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As Michael Elbel wrote: > > Joerg said that there's other console drivers than syscons that have > DEL generated by the BS key and that because of this the default erase > char shouldn't be changed. [...] Did you remember that pcvt is also running on other systems (NetBSD, and even 386BSD)? So it would be highly unwise to change its default behaviour. I doubt the NetBSD folks would agree with our change, just since one of the dozen platforms they used to support had the speciality that a well-known program loader running prior to BSD there on a single (out of the dozen) architecture used to go with ^H for the default erase character. Hence, pcvt certainly _won't_ change its default behaviour. (And should FreeBSD do, reverting this will be the first patch i'll put into my personal ``apply this immediately on every new release'' area. I never even missed the ^H by now.) 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.) 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?'' Do you still think it's worth the trouble? It's only that the kind of questions will change, not the amount. -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
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