On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, Michael Piotrowski wrote:

> Johnny Billquist <bqt@update.uu.se> writes:
>
> > Yup. I always want capital letters if I press shift, no matter what caps
> > lock happen to be. Just like typewriters way back to the 18th century do
> > (and eveything with a keyboard up until the IBM PC).
>
> Well, it ain't that simple, I'd say.  On a mechanical typewriter,
> there really is no Caps Lock, but Shift Lock, i.e., the *entire*
> keyboard is shifted.  Also, on a mechanical typewriter, if Shift Lock
> is activated, Shift unlocks it.

True, sortof. Shift "unhinges" the shift lock, but you'll only get out of
it when you release the shift.

> On computing equipment in UNIX environments and elsewhere, there have
> always been many different behaviors wrt. delete characters, Caps
> Lock, etc. since a lot of different terminals have been used with UNIX
> systems.  In fact, that's the root of the problem: It's not like we
> had only one single behavior in the past that's now being replaced.

Well, yes, there were always some odd terminal, but we're talking odd
terminals then. The major portion of them behaved the same way. (We're
talking of something like 80% here...) And NetBSD did behave that way too,
until "recently".

> It has always been a mess.

Yes.

> > Obviously a lot of people now disagree with me, since this behaviour have
> > changed in the last few years. :-)
>
> I dunno.  As I said, I think there has never been agreement.  This way
> it's possible that I don't agree with neither the defaults *nor* with
> you :-)

Well, I didn't claim *you* disagreed, only that "a lot of people". And I
think that's a fair assumption since NetBSD have changed its behaviour in
the last few years.
Or perhaps it has done so not because anyone likes it that way, but
because some sinister conspiracy is at work? :-)

	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