First, I think that you have found a bug (though also a workaround) if
you cannot get BS and DEL to produce distinct keys.  It may be the same
bug as Steven M. Bellovin has run into.  I hope that someone who has
the time and a misbehaving system to study will fix this.  Mapping to
the numeric keypad <Del> key should not be required.  (Steven, are you
using the "console" or a "virtual console"?  I seem to recall that
in days gone by, the 0th console was ttyE0, but is now "console",
which has some slightly different handling...  I did my tests on a
ttyE? virtual console since my 0th console is tied up with "startx".)
(Hm.  Zbigniew, did you try on the main console, or on a virtual console?)

Second, X is relavent, even if you are not using X normally.  Perhaps
you were unaware that X uses the OS interface to the keyboard (wscons),
as far as I know.  This means that if X can get the keys separtely treated,
then there's a good chance that this bug is not really in wscons---or if
it is, that by looking at how X talks to wscons, the bug can be more
quickly understood.

Third, though I don't read tech-userlevel as a rule, I agree with
Christopher that it may be desirable to provide mappings for the
"missing" ASCII codes.  Or perhaps we can map key presses explicitly
to ASCII codes by number, rather than use names?


-- 
  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  http://www.olib.org/~rkr/