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From: lennartb@lne.kth.se (Lennart Brjeson @ KTH, Stockholm)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: ESC key on VT200 and VT300 terminals.
Message-ID: <00947B35.399C3A00@lne.kth.se>
Date: 26 Apr 91 07:51:38 GMT
References: <9104191706.AA10953@cwns10.INS.CWRU.Edu>,<bqt.672614692@cia.docs.uu.se>
Sender: news@kth.se  (News Administrator)
Reply-To: lennartb@lne.kth.se (Lennart Brjeson @ KTH, Stockholm)
Organization: KTH, Royal Institute of Technology, School of Electrical Engineering
Lines: 33

In article <bqt.672614692@cia.docs.uu.se>, bqt@cia.docs.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) writes:
[...deleted...]
>>      I use the EMACS editor, which is a very popular editor
>>    for mainframe computers, and it requires the use of the
>>    ESC key. It's rather annoying to have to hit CTRL-3 for 
>>    the ESC key, particularly when there's no logical reason
>>    why it should be that way.
>
>Yup. There is no clear reson why DEC did such a stupid thing as trying
>to remove the ECS key. Whith the VT300 they did a half retreat, but it
>still is a small pain.
>

The reason is STANDARDS. ESC was never intended to be user-accessible.
ESC means "And now over to something completely different:". I can agree
that it is unfortunate that a lot of products in the past have misused
the ESC character for their own purposes.

On the other hand, as anyone who has ever tried to read his/her way through
tonnes of confusing/contradicting RFCs (frequently claimed to be "standard"
although they're just a Request For Comments!), "standards" sometimes must
be written just to confuse the enemy...

[...deleted...]

!++
! Lennart Boerjeson, System Manager
! School of Electrical Engineering
! Royal Institute of Technology
! S-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
! tel: int+46-8-7907814
! Internet: lennartb@lne.kth.se
!--