Delete key

[Bill Campbell]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2014, Kenneth Brody wrote:
>On 3/24/2014 1:41 PM, Bill Campbell wrote:
>[...]
>> ESC was intended at being the beginning of an escape sequence, never
>> designed to stand alone.  As usual, Microsoft corrupted this decades ago in
>> their usual ignorance of communications standards.  WordStar displayed
>> similar ignorance when it used ctrl-s (XOFF) as cursor control, as did
>> Scripsit which I think used ctrl-S to start a search, and the Radio Shack
>> Model 12 keyboard had a function key around the numeric keypad that sent
>> XOFF.  I don't know how many calls I got from customers with new Model 12s
>> and 16s complaining that their Xenix keyboards locked up.
>
>There was also a printer that used XOFF for underline on (or maybe off). 
>Imagine the "fun" (FSVO) that ensued when connected via a serial port.  (Or 
>maybe it was attached as a local printer on a computer/terminal connected 
>via a serial port.)

The most "fun" I had like that was when working on a contract with Lennie
Rosenberg's brother Ted.

Ted had spec'ed the hardware, using some really cheap terminals with an NCR
Tower.  The terminal recognize the code to switch output to the printer,
after sending it through to the printer!  This would put the printer in
something like 6in per line (not 6lpi) mode, resetting things like pitch.
I had to hack my "C" code to keep track of the printer state, resetting it
completely after sending the printer-on code to the terminal.

>It was, of course, originally reported to sCC as a filePro bug.  :-)

Natch.

Bill
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