Re: Backspace, Delete and other keys

[Johnny Billquist <bqt%softjar.se@localhost>]

Greg A. Woods wrote:
> At Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:14:15 -0400, Greg Troxel <gdt%ir.bbn.com@localhost> 
> wrote:
> Subject: Re: Backspace, Delete and other keys
> > You have been brainwashed by Windows.  Delete is supposed to be ASCII
> > DEL, which is supposed to delete left.
>
> Ah, that's not MS-Windows fault.  That was a debate started long before
> any graphical user interface was ever built.  :-)

Depends on your definition of graphical user interface, I guess. :-)
But I agree that it wasn't MS-Windows. It was more the IBM PC in general.

> See, for instance, <URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backspace>

Whoa! That page was rather revisionistic.

> There the dilemma is explained as follows:
>
>     In modern systems, the backspace key is often mapped to the delete
>     character (0x7f in ASCII or Unicode), although the backspace key's
>     function of deleting the character before the cursor remains.
>
> I guess by "modern" the author meant something as new as an ASR-33.  :-)

Someone should send them the layout of a VT100 keyboard.
There you have both a backspace key, and a DELETE key. Guess which sends 
which code, and what was expected to happen when you pressed them.

And the ASR33 don't have either a Backspace or a Delete key, but a "Rub 
Out" key. That one will send a DEL when pressed.

> Sadly some East-coast folks were no help when they decided that
> <Control-H> was distinct from <Backspace>.  :-)

Hmm. I don't know at all who you are referring to now. Please enlighten me.

> And then they got all confused entirely about <Delete>.
>
> Trying to fit ASCII into 7 bits was probably the ultimate cause since it
> meant there was no room for separate <Backspace> and <Control-H>.  :-)

Yes, in the way that there is no <Control-anything> in the ASCII table.
That's just a way to generate non-printable characters on most 
keyboards. So most keyboards allows you to generate a BS, by pressing 
^H, the same way that you can press ^M as an alternative to pressing the 
return key (assuming your keyboard sends a CR when someone press the 
return key).

But apart from that, much confusion stems from the fact that people 
don't distinguish between key labels, the codes they send, and how the 
OS reacts when receiving them.

When a BS character is sent to a terminal, I think (would hope) that 
most agree that the expected behavior is that the cursor moves to the 
left, and nothing else happens (thus, the normal way of apparently 
"delete" a character is to send backspace, space, backspace).
When a DEL character is sent to a terminal, most of the time nothing 
happens. It's not a character with a visible representation, nor any 
obvious defined characteristic (well, one could argue for the fact that 
on a paper tape, it will actually "delete" the current character, and 
that is what it is meant to be used for).
When a BS or DEL is sent to the OS from the terminal, it is obvious that 
the OS can choose to handle them any way it wants to. There is no 
obvious "right" way.
And then we have the question of which key should send which code.
We have keys with left arrows, labels like "Rub Out", "Delete", 
"Backspace", "Erase", and graphics like " <X] ".

Looking historically, most of these have sent the DEL character, with 
the exception of the "Backspace" key, which usually sends BS.
And most any system accepted DEL as the code to delete one character to 
the left.

Now, the IBM PC, being from IBM (which didn't even use ASCII before the 
PC) did with this, as with many other things on that machine, in a way 
that was incompatible with most anything else in the market at that 
time. Kind of like Microsoft is doing now. Pretend to follow a standard, 
but twist and pervert it some, so that things don't actually work that 
well with anything else.
So, they put a key with a left arrow, but which sent a BS. And then they 
made their system accept BS as the code to delete one character to the left.

Now comes the question; Should we now all adopt the IBM PC way, or 
should we keep the old ways?
Lots of people (especially younger) now wants the IBM PC way, while some 
older ones wants the old way.
Go figure.

However, if you want to pretend to be a VT100, layoutwise, the DEL key 
should be closer to the return key, and the backspace key farther away. 
Also, if you use any OS contemporary with the VT100, that OS will 
probably behave so that a received DEL will delete the character to the 
left of the cursor, while a BACKSPACE will just echo back like any other 
character.

Unix originally had a totally different mapping. It used @ to delete a 
line, and # to delete a character (unless I just accidentally swapped 
them now).
Eventually people in general got tired of that idea, and wanted to use 
those characters in their input. And also, since they were using 
terminals common of that day, they shifted to using DEL to delete 
characters.

So, for the original poster. Start by figuring out how you really want 
to have things working, and then change stuff everywhere needed to get 
the behavior you expect.

        Johnny