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Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!necntc!ima!haddock!karl
From: karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: gnumacs bindings
Message-ID: <1173@haddock.ISC.COM>
Date: Thu, 17-Sep-87 15:02:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: haddock.1173
Posted: Thu Sep 17 15:02:39 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Sep-87 15:07:32 EDT
References: <3720007@hpsemc.UUCP> <3590005@hpindda.HP.COM>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 15

In article <3590005@hpindda.HP.COM> jack@hpindda.HP.COM (Jack Repenning) writes:
>Well, yes, that's pretty likely what [RMS] was thinking.  The problem
>faced by anyone using an HP keyboard (aren't many other keyboards like
>this, too?) is that the BACKSPACE key is big, friendly, easy to hit,
>and used by every other program commonly run to mean (what in emacs we
>call) backward-delete-character.

The other side of the coin is that the DEL key is awkward to hit.  To
paraphrase RMS, "such terminals are inferior merchandise and should not be
purchased".  Any decent terminal manufacturer should realize that some
operating systems use DEL as the erase character, and the obvious thing to do
is to make a key with a neutral label (ERASE, or some flavor of left arrow)
which can be programmed to transmit either C-h or DEL (or other).

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint