"Valeriy E. Ushakov" <uwe@stderr.spb.ru> writes:

> mowestusa <mowestusa@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> IIRC, default wscons keymap maps both the "<-" key in the upper right
> corner of the main block (scancode 14) and the "Delete" key in the 2x3
> editing block (scancode 211) to produce ASCII character DEL (127).  So
> programs just cannot distinguish the two keys with the default keymap.

Default seems to be <- is BS and Delete DEL.

>> On those keyboards you had no "backspace" but instead had a "delete"
>> key in that location that carried out the function of
>> "delete-left". You had no way to "delete-right" on those old
>> terminals.
>
> I think you are confused.  "delete-right" or "delete-left" are actions
> that program performs in response to certain key presses (in the case
> of terminal - bytes coming from the tty).  Of course you was able to
> "delete-right", it all about how your programs are configured.

Sure, but I think the point is that the behavior of DEL was wired into
the cooked-mode tty processing, and most programs used cooked mode.
Programs that used raw mode behaved this way too, in order not to be
confusing and gratuitously different.  So that usage was universal.

While you could certainly delete the character at the cursor in vi or
emacs, that was about those programs interpreting some key sequence that
way, as opposed to now where nearly all X11 programs interpret the
"Delete" key as delete right.

Someday I'll perhaps get around to spiffing up the guide to explain
this.