Date:        Fri, 6 Sep 2002 12:00:14 +0100
    From:        Jonathan Perkin <sketch@rd.bbc.co.uk>
    Message-ID:  <20020906110014.GE26190@inet34>

  | This has always been one of my pet-hates on UNIX, and while I've
  | pretty much got every app configured to DTRT, I'd still like to
  | get to the bottom of the issue.

It isn't "unix" so much, as the fact that unix runs on lots of
different kinds of hardware (and keyboards) and was built by people
who came from lots of different backgrounds (and hence had their
brains pre-configured with specific knowledge of what was correct)

The result is that some things want "delete" other things want
"backspace", and people who want to do one of those want the key that
generates it to be the larger than normal one on the right side
near the back (on the "number" row usually, sometimes the qwerty row).

The nice thing about unix is that all this is configurable, so you can
set your system up to match your beliefs of how all this should be done.
And while I wouldn't mind if that key labeled "backspace" actually
generated ^H, all the emacs freaks would moan, as for them, ^H is "help"
not "erase a character", and they really want that big key on the right
to be "erase a character", not "help".

So, just set up your keyboard mappings, your terminal driver settings,
and your line editor (shell, etc) key bindings to match what you like.
It can be tedious to get it to all work together, but once you're done,
you should see almost no other problems.

kre

ps: "kb" is the "value sent by the backspace key", which on a true vt220
is indeed ^H.   It has nothing at all to do (necessarily) with erasing
anything - just the value transmitted by a keyboard key.   In gettytab
on the other hand, "er" is the character getty is to use to delete the
previous typed character, regardless of how that value is generated on
the keyboard.   So, no, there is no conflict, or only if you assume that
you have a real vt220 (emulations tend to take liberties with key layouts)
and you're expecting the "backspace" key to erase characters when you're
talking to getty (entering a login name mostly).   On a real vt220 though
you'd probably be using the erase key for that purpose, not backspace.
As I recall, it is a different thing (with a left arrow on it).