I wrote a snippet from my K&R C studies to convert tabs and backspaces to \t \b to display them, the code looks like this: /* ex 1-8 */ main() {     int c, sf;     while((c = getchar()) != EOF) {         if(c == '\t')             printf("\\t");          if(c == '\b')             printf("\\b");         else             putchar(c);     } } I'm not looking for code review, but the code is intended to replace the tabs and backspaces with \t and \b respectively, but I haven't been able to test it because I can't seem to make a backspace character appear in input. In later unices, ^V followed by the backspace would work, but that's not part of v7. Backspace itself is my erase character, so anytime I just type it, it backspaces :). Thanks, Will -- GPG Fingerprint: 68F4 B3BD 1730 555A 4462 7D45 3EAA 5B6D A982 BAAF