^X (was: an odd question

From: Eric Dittman <dittman_at_dittman.net>
Date: Fri Aug 10 16:01:28 2001

> > I rarely ever use anything other than ^S/^Q, except on a VTxxx terminal,
> > where I will in the odd instance use the "Hold Screen" key. I'll also
> > often use ^[ for ESC.
>
> ^[ doesn't work on Televideo terminals. Some bright soul writing the
> firmware seems to have decided that, since the terminal has a perfectly
> good ESCape key, no one would _ever_ want to use ^[. When you hit
> ^[ on a Televideo, you get ^] ([ and ] are on the same key; you should have
> had to hit SHIFT to get ^]). This was really annoying to me
> when I was moving between keyboards a lot and picked up the habit of
> hitting ^[ in vi because I couldn't depend on the location of the ESCape
> key (or even it's existence; I used a lot of VT220s and other DEC systems
> which used the LK201 keyboard).

That sounds really brain-damaged on Televideo's part. I picked up
using ^[ for ESC for the same reason as you did, along with the fact
that, as a touch-typist, I could hit ^[ without taking my hands away
from the home keys while the ESC key almost always was located where
I'd have to take my left hand away.
-- 
Eric Dittman
dittman_at_dittman.net
School Zones:  Man's attempt to thwart natural selection.
Received on Fri Aug 10 2001 - 16:01:28 BST

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