forked from pifty/tutes-dump
60 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
60 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
[13] WHY DOES BACKSPACE AND DELETE NOT WORK HERE?
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The question should be:
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"WHY DO THE BACKSPACE AND DELETE KEYS WORK INCONSISTENTLY ON COMPUTERS?"
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The reason requires a history lesson, but you probably aren't interested
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in learning why it has become inconsistent and would rather just fix it
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and move on. If that is what you want, then type:
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$ stty erase '^H'
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- or -
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$ stty erase '^?'
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There is no way to know for sure which will work for you, so try them both.
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Alternatively you could type 'stty erase ' and then your backspace key.
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(NOTE: don't type the ' symbols and also, mind the whitespace .. but you
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probably don't even understand that, so just try the two examples above).
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If one of them works for you, then put the one that did in your .profile
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A HISTORY LESSON
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So why do we have [RUBOUT], [DELETE/DEL], [ERASE] and [BACKSPACE/BKSP]
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keys on (some) computer keyboards? It actually goes back to the input
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devices used to create punched cards and papertape. These devices were
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similar to manual typewriters. They would punch holes into a paper media
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that could then be read by a computer later on. While we all strive to be
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perfect typists, we all create mistakes ... once you punch holes into
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paper, its nearly impossible to get the 'chads' you've created back in to
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repunch. So a correction was made by pressing the [BACKSPACE] key, which
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would move the carriage back one character space and you would then press
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the [DELETE] key to punch all the bits out of that space.
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ASCII HEX OCTAL DEC CHAR
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----------------------------------------
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ASCII BS 0x08 0010 8 ^H
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ASCII DEL 0x7F 0177 127 ^?
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When input devices were developed that allowed users to program directly
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into a computer and store programs as files on disks (or have the computer
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punch the tape or card stack for you once you had properly typed in and ran
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your program), the behaviour of the aforementioned keys became inconsistent.
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Most people probably expect [BACKSPACE/BKSP] to move the cursor to the left
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erasing characters as you press it, and the [DELETE/DEL] key not moving the
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cursor, but 'eating' characters and whitespace from the right.
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A USER'S PERSPECTIVE
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On my Symbolics LISPM keyboard I have a [RUBOUT], [DELETE] and [ERASE]
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key .. but on my Apple Powerbook I just have a [DELETE] key. The [RUBOUT]
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key is located where your [CAPS LOCK] key is, so in order to rubout
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characters, you use the pinky on your left hand. On the Powerbook I have
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to use my right hand to press the [DELETE] key which is located all the way
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up (and out of the home row position) in the top right hand corner of the
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keyboard. The LISPM keyboard might sound weird, but you get used to it
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really quick if you are a traditional 'home row' touch typist.
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