On Sun, 8 Feb 2004, Ben Collver wrote:

> On Sun, Feb 08, 2004 at 02:50:59PM +0100, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> > I've silently watched the creeping PCism for years, but I finally have to
> > speak out, and ask one thing.
> >
> > I don't like having ^H as the default for erase, and now it's both in X
> > and normal shells. Is there an easy way to have something else as default?
>
> From what I read at http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/backspace.html, ^H as
> backspace comes from American National Standard X3.4-1977, Section 5.1,
> Control Characters.

Yes. So far I have no problems. Backspace is the same a ^H.

>  Since NetBSD/i386 pckbd/wscons emulates vt100 by
> default, I see an interesting puzzle.  The vt100 has both a backspace key
> (mapped to 8) and a rubout key (mapped to 127?).  Should the PC backspace
> key be mapped to backspace?  Sounds logical to me.

This is where I totally don't agree. Where does it say that my key marked
"<-" should be called backspace?
That same key on a VT100 and similar sends a DEL. Now, I know that a PC
keyboard have a key marked "delete", but that key can send whatever it
wants to (even DEL, see if I care), but the "<-" key above the
return/enter key should send a DEL in my opinion, and did so in the past.
I'd like to get it back that way, please.

I can fiddle a lot with different options both here and there, but I'm
getting a bit tired at stumbling onto obstacles now and again because of
this.

My latest problem (and the reason for my mail) was that an xterm I create,
which does a telnet to a remote node, have this new PCish mapping locally.
That means when I escape telnet, I have erase bound to ^H there, which
messes with the fact that I have seen to it that my "<-" key sends a DEL.

Or, to express that specific problem another way: how do I get a tty to
bind erase to ^? when that tty just is created to run a telnet command?

> So far as I can tell, the most flexible way to change the default is
> something like:
> echo "wsconsctl -w map+="keycode 42 = Delete" >>/etc/rc.local

That don't even start to solve the problems...
:-)

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt@update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol