Valeriy E. Ushakov wrote:
> I'd like to know why --
> > sooner or later, with enough indirection via ssh/rsh -- the backspace
> > key starts being echoed as ^H when I mistype a search in less(1). 
> 
> less doesn't check "kb" capability and you have stty erase '^?' on
> that system.

Well if that doesn't beat all.  I don't know how to fix it yet, but you're
on to something.  

I use my Powerbook as a (mostly) troublefree front-end to my NetBSD
machine.  Generally I'm logged into NetBSD over the wireless connection
using rsh.  (I don't mind if the neighbors eavesdrop.  Hi Greg!)

The Powerbook has a key in the upper left corner labelled "delete".  I
guess Apple didn't bite from the same apple IBM did.  OS X seems to map it
to ^H:

$ stty -a | sed -n '/^cc/,$p'
cchars: discard = ^O; dsusp = ^Y; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
        eol2 = <undef>; erase = ^H; intr = ^C; kill = ^U; lnext = ^V;
        min = 1; quit = ^\; reprint = ^R; start = ^Q; status = <undef>;
        stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; time = 0; werase = ^W;


When I rsh from that terminal to NetBSD 2.0, it switches, just as you
said:

$ stty -a | sed -n '/^cc/,$p'
cchars: discard = ^O; dsusp = ^Y; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
        eol2 = <undef>; erase = ^?; intr = ^C; kill = ^U; lnext = ^V;
        min = 1; quit = ^\; reprint = ^R; start = ^Q; status = ^T;
        stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; time = 0; werase = ^W;

but if I try "man ls" while logged in and try to use the, um, delete key
when searching, I get:

/^H

I think that confirms what you said.  Except that it works fine when
logged in locally.  

What's the Right Thing to do?  

Much obliged.  

--jkl