APPLEVISION Monitor, unix backspace/editor

From: Raymond Moyers <rmoyers_at_nop.org>
Date: Mon May 6 23:18:11 2002

On Monday 06 May 2002 20:18, you wrote:
> On Mon, 6 May 2002, Raymond Moyers wrote:
> > Unix, for years, shipped with a editor nobody could use
> > and backspace key that did not work, and seemed rigged

> Try "stty erase ^H" The ^H is the backspace key. And vi is a prince
> among text editors. It rocks.

 Well, take it as i intended, today its not an issue, and perhaps
 the pressure of the free *nix systems had a part in the vendors
 cleaning things up

 Today the backspace key will work at least on most proprietary
 Unix.

 Face it, in user interface polish, the stuff written by those that
 care and the code they gave for free is light years superior to all
 the cruft written by the OS vendors, seemingly by people with no
 more interest in their product than "this is what i do inbetween
 weekends"

 If Sun IBM and a few others had their way the standard interface
 for Unix would be CDE, that is just as crappy a "no-design"
 as winblows where the closer you look the less you can decern
 what their goal was.

 Uber-crap like this is what happens when marketing mentality
 invades the creative space where it belongs as much as
 an airboat prop on a submarine.

 the early linux distro creators bundled with the base a choice
 of editors and a default shell where all the familiar keys worked
 and these two tiny little things, i assert droped the barrier to entry
 low enough that a newbie was no longer flogged into abandoning
 his quest of discovery short of discovering the power lurking
 within.

 OSX for the Macs is perhaps taking it to the next level, sure
 its a sucky microkernel and not the best example of a Unix
 but it will at least keep the people close enough that they
 should and will discover the awesome power of the
 architecture lurking underneath all the pretty frosting.

 Raymond

 "An OS without source is like buying a car with the
 hood locked, where only the car company has the key,
 you dont need to be a mechanic to gain benifit from free
 access to your engine compartment"
Received on Mon May 06 2002 - 23:18:11 BST