* [TUHS] Re: Word erase?
2024-04-08 15:18 ` arnold
@ 2024-04-08 15:29 ` Warner Losh
2024-04-08 15:59 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2024-04-08 15:39 ` Larry McVoy
` (3 subsequent siblings)
4 siblings, 1 reply; 13+ messages in thread
From: Warner Losh @ 2024-04-08 15:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Arnold Robbins; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
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On Mon, Apr 8, 2024, 9:18 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:
> Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I wonder if anyone can shed any light on the timing and rationale for
> > the introduction of “word erase” functionality to the kernel terminal
> > driver. My surface skim earlier leads me to believe it came to Unix
> > with 4BSD, but it was not reincorporated into 8th Edition or later,
> > nor did it make it to Plan 9 (which did incorporate ^U for the "line
> > kill" command). TOPS-20 supports it via the familiar ^W, but I'm not
> > sure about other PDP-10 OSes (Lars?). Multics does not support it.
> > VMS does not support it.
> >
> > What was the proximal inspiration? The early terminal drivers seem to
> > use the Multics command editing suite (`#` for erase/backspace, `@`
> > for line kill), though at some point that changed, one presumes as
> > TTYs fell out of favor and display terminals came to the fore.
> >
> > - Dan C.
>
> My memory jibes with this -- through V7 defaults were # and @, and BSD
> changed to ^H / DEL and ^U. ^W was a BSD thing, probably inspired by
> TOPS-10.
>
> There was a patch on USENET that added ^T to print the load average that
> we put into the vax at Georgia Tech. A professor who'd come to us from MIT
> saw it and was surprised tht we could do it on Unix. :-)
>
^T made it into BSD and lives on to this day in the BSDs. If I were catty,
I'd say real unix still can... :) too bad linux never picked it up.
Warner
>
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* [TUHS] Re: Word erase?
2024-04-08 15:29 ` Warner Losh
@ 2024-04-08 15:59 ` Lars Brinkhoff
0 siblings, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread
From: Lars Brinkhoff @ 2024-04-08 15:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Warner Losh; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
> Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
> > TOPS-20 supports it via the familiar ^W, but I'm not sure about
> > other PDP-10 OSes (Lars?).
I haven't seen it in TOPS-10. ITS doesn't have that on the "command
line", but then interaction with DDT isn't (and arguably shouldn't be)
very "wordy" anyway. Of course, TECO and EMACS has word erase. And ^W
is erase between cursor and mark so that's similar.
Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> writes:
> ^T made it into BSD and lives on to this day in the BSDs. If I were catty,
> I'd say real unix still can... :) too bad linux never picked it up.
There's a whole Wikipedia page about ^T:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_key
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Word erase?
2024-04-08 15:18 ` arnold
2024-04-08 15:29 ` Warner Losh
@ 2024-04-08 15:39 ` Larry McVoy
2024-04-08 16:06 ` Rich Salz
` (2 subsequent siblings)
4 siblings, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread
From: Larry McVoy @ 2024-04-08 15:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: arnold; +Cc: tuhs
On Mon, Apr 08, 2024 at 09:18:41AM -0600, arnold@skeeve.com wrote:
> Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I wonder if anyone can shed any light on the timing and rationale for
> > the introduction of ???word erase??? functionality to the kernel terminal
> > driver. My surface skim earlier leads me to believe it came to Unix
> > with 4BSD, but it was not reincorporated into 8th Edition or later,
> > nor did it make it to Plan 9 (which did incorporate ^U for the "line
> > kill" command). TOPS-20 supports it via the familiar ^W, but I'm not
> > sure about other PDP-10 OSes (Lars?). Multics does not support it.
> > VMS does not support it.
> >
> > What was the proximal inspiration? The early terminal drivers seem to
> > use the Multics command editing suite (`#` for erase/backspace, `@`
> > for line kill), though at some point that changed, one presumes as
> > TTYs fell out of favor and display terminals came to the fore.
> >
> > - Dan C.
>
> My memory jibes with this -- through V7 defaults were # and @, and BSD
> changed to ^H / DEL and ^U. ^W was a BSD thing, probably inspired by
> TOPS-10.
>
> There was a patch on USENET that added ^T to print the load average that
> we put into the vax at Georgia Tech. A professor who'd come to us from MIT
> saw it and was surprised tht we could do it on Unix. :-)
I loved and hated ^T. Logged into a 4MB Vax 780 running 4.x BSD
with 40-50 other students, the only thing that was responsive was ^T.
I really wonder how much slower that Vax was because we were all hitting
^T wondering when our compile would be done.
It was around then that I bought a 128K floppy only CP/M machine.
Slower than the Vax but it was all mine and unshared. I got way
more work done on that machine.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Word erase?
2024-04-08 15:18 ` arnold
2024-04-08 15:29 ` Warner Losh
2024-04-08 15:39 ` Larry McVoy
@ 2024-04-08 16:06 ` Rich Salz
2024-04-09 1:51 ` Chris Torek
2024-04-08 17:09 ` Steve Nickolas
2024-04-08 22:51 ` Mary Ann Horton
4 siblings, 1 reply; 13+ messages in thread
From: Rich Salz @ 2024-04-08 16:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: arnold; +Cc: tuhs
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On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 11:18 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:
> There was a patch on USENET that added ^T to print the load average that
> we put into the vax at Georgia Tech. A professor who'd come to us from MIT
> saw it and was surprised tht we could do it on Unix. :-)
Chris Torek of UofMaryland.
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* [TUHS] Re: Word erase?
2024-04-08 16:06 ` Rich Salz
@ 2024-04-09 1:51 ` Chris Torek
2024-04-12 15:58 ` Mary Ann Horton
0 siblings, 1 reply; 13+ messages in thread
From: Chris Torek @ 2024-04-09 1:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: arnold, rich.salz; +Cc: tuhs
>Chris Torek of UofMaryland.
I got it into 4.3-Reno. I did not come up with the whole thing but
Rehmi Post and I worked out how to compute %cpu without using floating
point (the original VAX-only version used FP but we had to stop doing
that when we were worried about porting to systems that lacked kernel
access to FP).
The version in current FreeBSD is fancier now though.
Chris
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Word erase?
2024-04-08 15:18 ` arnold
` (2 preceding siblings ...)
2024-04-08 16:06 ` Rich Salz
@ 2024-04-08 17:09 ` Steve Nickolas
2024-04-08 22:51 ` Mary Ann Horton
4 siblings, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread
From: Steve Nickolas @ 2024-04-08 17:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: tuhs
On Mon, 8 Apr 2024, arnold@skeeve.com wrote:
> There was a patch on USENET that added ^T to print the load average that
> we put into the vax at Georgia Tech. A professor who'd come to us from MIT
> saw it and was surprised tht we could do it on Unix. :-)
I like this in the BSDs and miss it when I'm on Linux.
-uso.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Word erase?
2024-04-08 15:18 ` arnold
` (3 preceding siblings ...)
2024-04-08 17:09 ` Steve Nickolas
@ 2024-04-08 22:51 ` Mary Ann Horton
2024-04-12 1:29 ` Joseph Holsten
4 siblings, 1 reply; 13+ messages in thread
From: Mary Ann Horton @ 2024-04-08 22:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: tuhs
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On 4/8/24 08:18, arnold@skeeve.com wrote:
> Dan Cross<crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I wonder if anyone can shed any light on the timing and rationale for
>> the introduction of “word erase” functionality to the kernel terminal
>> driver. My surface skim earlier leads me to believe it came to Unix
>> with 4BSD, but it was not reincorporated into 8th Edition or later,
>> nor did it make it to Plan 9 (which did incorporate ^U for the "line
>> kill" command). TOPS-20 supports it via the familiar ^W, but I'm not
>> sure about other PDP-10 OSes (Lars?). Multics does not support it.
>> VMS does not support it.
>>
>> What was the proximal inspiration? The early terminal drivers seem to
>> use the Multics command editing suite (`#` for erase/backspace, `@`
>> for line kill), though at some point that changed, one presumes as
>> TTYs fell out of favor and display terminals came to the fore.
>>
>> - Dan C.
> My memory jibes with this -- through V7 defaults were # and @, and BSD
> changed to ^H / DEL and ^U. ^W was a BSD thing, probably inspired by
> TOPS-10.
>
Vi had ^W for word erase long before the tty driver. It's documented in
2BSD.
I think it appeared in the tty driver as part of the new tty driver,
around 4.1C. The 4.2 stty(1) documents that you can set werase but only
with the new tty driver.
Personally I fondly recalled it from Tenex and wished for it in UNIX. I
can't recall if I lobbied for it or if anyone heard me.
Chambers and Quarterman noted the new tty driver's presence in 4.1C.
https://gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX*_System_V_and_4.1C_BSD
> 2.2.5 Ioctls The ioctl system call is essentially
> identical in the two systems. The interesting differences
> are in the terminal driver ioctls. Both drivers utilize the
> ``line discipline'' notion, allowing dynamic choice among
> several protocols by the user process.
>
> Berkeley offers several new features in 4.1C BSD over
> the V7 terminal driver. Some of these are accessed as a new
> line discipline (the ``new tty'' discipline), while a few
> others are implemented as additional ioctl calls.
Thanks,
/Mary Ann Horton/ (she/her/ma'am)
Award Winning Author
maryannhorton.com <https://maryannhorton.com>
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* [TUHS] Re: Word erase?
2024-04-08 22:51 ` Mary Ann Horton
@ 2024-04-12 1:29 ` Joseph Holsten
0 siblings, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread
From: Joseph Holsten @ 2024-04-12 1:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Tautological Eunuch Horticultural Scythians
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On Mon, Apr 8, 2024, at 15:51, Mary Ann Horton wrote:
> On 4/8/24 08:18, arnold@skeeve.com wrote:
>> Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I wonder if anyone can shed any light on the timing and rationale for
>>> the introduction of “word erase” functionality to the kernel terminal
>>> driver. My surface skim earlier leads me to believe it came to Unix
>>> with 4BSD, but it was not reincorporated into 8th Edition or later,
>>> nor did it make it to Plan 9 (which did incorporate ^U for the "line
>>> kill" command). TOPS-20 supports it via the familiar ^W, but I'm not
>>> sure about other PDP-10 OSes (Lars?). Multics does not support it.
>>> VMS does not support it.
>>>
>>> What was the proximal inspiration? The early terminal drivers seem to
>>> use the Multics command editing suite (`#` for erase/backspace, `@`
>>> for line kill), though at some point that changed, one presumes as
>>> TTYs fell out of favor and display terminals came to the fore.
>>>
>>> - Dan C.
>>>
>> My memory jibes with this -- through V7 defaults were # and @, and BSD
>> changed to ^H / DEL and ^U. ^W was a BSD thing, probably inspired by
>> TOPS-10.
>>
>>
> Vi had ^W for word erase long before the tty driver. It's documented in 2BSD.
>
> I think it appeared in the tty driver as part of the new tty driver, around 4.1C. The 4.2 stty(1) documents that you can set werase but only with the new tty driver.
>
> Personally I fondly recalled it from Tenex and wished for it in UNIX. I can't recall if I lobbied for it or if anyone heard me.
>
> Chambers and Quarterman noted the new tty driver's presence in 4.1C. https://gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX*_System_V_and_4.1C_BSD
>
>
>
>> 2.2.5 Ioctls The ioctl system call is essentially
>> identical in the two systems. The interesting differences
>> are in the terminal driver ioctls. Both drivers utilize the
>> ``line discipline'' notion, allowing dynamic choice among
>> several protocols by the user process.
>>
>> Berkeley offers several new features in 4.1C BSD over
>> the V7 terminal driver. Some of these are accessed as a new
>> line discipline (the ``new tty'' discipline), while a few
>> others are implemented as additional ioctl calls.
That makes me wonder about the timeline compared to the other tenex-inspired BSD-ism I’m happy for: tcsh.
History here:
https://github.com/tcsh-org/tcsh/blob/master/tcsh.man.in#L10239 <https://github.com/tcsh-org/tcsh/blob/c416b8588e4012f6f90cd82262e7d30afe06bbbd/tcsh.man.in#L10239>
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