Date: Sat, 4 Mar 1995 00:45:57 -0800 (PST) From: "Rodney W. Grimes" <rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com> To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: backspace now broken Message-ID: <199503040845.AAA18800@gndrsh.aac.dev.com> In-Reply-To: <199503040811.JAA00523@uriah.heep.sax.de> from "J Wunsch" at Mar 4, 95 09:11:09 am
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> > To avoid any political wars, this will be my last posting to this > subject. I'd kindly ask all people replying to kill me out of the > Cc list -- it's enough that i get it from the list. I set the Reply to: to be freebsd-current. > As Rodney W. Grimes wrote: > > > > ... The IBM PC by tradition and by > > label on the keyboard ``backspace'' should generate a ^H, doing otherwise > > is something that should be left to personal preference via syscons keyboard > > remapping or xmodmap. > > 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''. > > What code is generated by the key has little to do with what traditionally > > has been set as the tty erase character. > > No, people mostly don't expect that key to generate any particular > code (why should they bother with any numerical codes?), they simply > expect it to delete something (instead of printing ^H when pressing > it). Since our terminal settings have always been erase=^? by default > (and a majority here seems to agree with this), it's stupid to map the > key most people prefer when erasing text to something else than the > tty erase char. Our terminal settings have not always been erase=^?: cvs rlog /usr/src/etc/root/dot.login (1.1.5 cvs repository): ---------------------------- revision 1.5 date: 1994/06/15 22:58:47; author: jkh; state: Exp; lines: +2 -2 Since we're using syscons now, make ^H the backspace character by default (ack ack, evil evil, but easier than changing syscons at this late hour). ---------------------------- ... ---------------------------- revision 1.2 date: 1993/08/31 14:38:58; author: rgrimes; state: Exp; lines: +1 -1 Changed stty erase ^H to stty erase ^?. ---------------------------- It was also flipped once back and forth during the patch kit days!! > > > This has changed back and forth at least 3 times, probably 4,... > > I can remember only one change: the move to syscons. All other > console drivers have been using DEL consistently. I even checked the > CVS source for kbdtables.h, syscons did never change it (at least, > there's no log message saying so) until now. So we are now > *consistent* again. Trust me, I can go dig it out from the patchkit where it was flipped, and with the above flip that makes atleast 3 times it was changed. > SysV's tend to use erase=^H, yes, but don't forget: they also use > intr=^? -- so do you wanna change this, too? (But then again, that's > the reason why they map the big grey key to ^H, since their users also > use it to erase text.) I don't give a sh*t about what OS does what with what character, I care that FreeBSD generates the ascii code for the legend on most if not all keyboards. > 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. -- Rod Grimes rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com Accurate Automation Company Custom computers for FreeBSD
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