From owner-freebsd-current Fri Mar 10 15:02:17 1995 Return-Path: current-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id PAA25948 for current-outgoing; Fri, 10 Mar 1995 15:02:17 -0800 Received: from gndrsh.aac.dev.com (gndrsh.aac.dev.com [198.145.92.241]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with ESMTP id PAA25942 for ; Fri, 10 Mar 1995 15:02:13 -0800 Received: (from rgrimes@localhost) by gndrsh.aac.dev.com (8.6.8/8.6.6) id PAA02676; Fri, 10 Mar 1995 15:00:49 -0800 From: "Rodney W. Grimes" Message-Id: <199503102300.PAA02676@gndrsh.aac.dev.com> Subject: Re: backspace now broken (proposal) To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 15:00:49 -0800 (PST) Cc: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org In-Reply-To: <199503101919.UAA11516@uriah.heep.sax.de> from "J Wunsch" at Mar 10, 95 08:19:56 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2539 Sender: current-owner@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > 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.) FreeBSD 2.0 shipped with the ``<-, Backspace'' key generating ^H, syscons until very recently generated ^H for that key! > 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.) I already shown the cvs logs on the mailling lists that make this statement untrue. > 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?'' It has already been changed once from ^? -> ^H and now back to ^? just 1 week ago. That is after all what sparked this whole thing to raise it's head once again. > Do you still think it's worth the trouble? It's only that the kind > of questions will change, not the amount. You are being religous, this is a religous thing. It still boils down to what character code the ``<-, backspace'' key should generate. We have 3 keys right now that generate ^?, it would really be nice to have one that generated ^H without having to hit 2 keys (control & H or shift & <-,backspace). -- Rod Grimes rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com Accurate Automation Company Custom computers for FreeBSD