From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [IPv6:2600:3c01:e000:146::1]) by inbox.vuxu.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6622D20FC3 for ; Mon, 8 Apr 2024 17:40:10 +0200 (CEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 237B542953; Tue, 9 Apr 2024 01:40:07 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mcvoy.com (mcvoy.com [192.169.23.250]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 2329A4294F for ; Tue, 9 Apr 2024 01:39:59 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mcvoy.com (Postfix, from userid 3546) id 8458C35E1C8; Mon, 8 Apr 2024 08:39:58 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2024 08:39:58 -0700 From: Larry McVoy To: arnold@skeeve.com Message-ID: <20240408153958.GL16155@mcvoy.com> References: <202404081518.438FIflK003772@freefriends.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <202404081518.438FIflK003772@freefriends.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) Message-ID-Hash: CZMYHKSENPQGUTRCXANRGBB553PZJMPG X-Message-ID-Hash: CZMYHKSENPQGUTRCXANRGBB553PZJMPG X-MailFrom: lm@mcvoy.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: tuhs@tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Word erase? List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On Mon, Apr 08, 2024 at 09:18:41AM -0600, arnold@skeeve.com wrote: > Dan Cross 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.