^H^H^H^H

[Doug Winterburn]

Ctrl-H or ^H is the ascii erase (or is it backspace) character. Commonly used in words like gar^H^H^Hshop.

-Doug

[Doug Winterburn]

...or "the blonde has big ti^Heeth"

-Doug

[Bridger]

so this gets used from time to time... the meaning seems clear enough, sort of a mental stutter, but I wonder how it came to be used and where it came from...... ^H^H^H^H anybody know? Bridger

[jo4hn]

[Gordon Airport]

Also look out for ^W, which in unixy environments often deletes the entire previous word rather than just one character.

[Greg G.]

An old CMP/MS-DOS WordStar convention, based on even older CRT teminal ASCII backspace/delete characters.

Greg G.

[Silvan]

Try it... Lots of editors still respond to this even today. Same thing as backspace.

[Robin Lee]

(whisper)

...i still use wordstar sometimes....DOS based...

Not sure of the version - but the com file is dated 1985, overlays dated

1983.

^KQ

[hex]

I seem to recall that M$ over-rode that convention in their fu^Hine Word product line and it now opens a dialog to place a hyper-link. I could be wrong, it may be ^k which is commonly "kill to end of line". All I know is that when trying to use Wei^H^Hord I end up having to close that stupid dialog whenever typing speeds up and keystrokes become more or less automatic.

hex

-30-

[Greg G.]

I still have copies of it archived on CD somewhere... WordStar v1, v2, v3, v4 and v4.5, I believe. Never cared for DOS Word, but it seems to have taken over the Windoze world. Took forever to 'forget' the typing conventions of WS. Then some crafty programmers editor known as QEdit retaught my fingers their errant ways. Want a copy of CPM? Corona DOS v1.05?

Greg G.

[Silvan]

Loved that thing...

Took me forever to learn vim when I switched to Linux. No WS-style editors that suited me. Vim is better though.

[Greg G.]

Yes, it was fast, compact (63k I think), fully customizable (it altered the executable with your mods), and would fit on a 5 1/4 low density floppy WITH bootable MS-DOS. I used it for well over 10 years. The programmer is/was local, and lived in Marietta, GA - Semware.

I believe they had a version of that on the System 34/36 and AS-400s at IBM, for whom I worked briefly in the late 80's - right before the big 'downsize'. Last in, first out.

I wouldn't even want to count the hours I have spent over the years keeping up with various programming languages and operating systems - only to have them disappear almost overnight.. I have so much obsolete crap in my head, there is no room for more.

I've gotten to the point I hate technology - and am sorry I ever spent a minute learning anything about it - I would have done far better, career wise, to have stuck with working on Mercedes'. :-|

Oops... Off topic rant...

Greg G.

[Mark & Juanita]

... snip

Why? Was she rich?

[Greg G.]

LOL, No such luck, just cars. But that brings up a whole 'nuther story... Sex, treachery, deceit, lawyers, ill gotten wealth, arson...

Greg G.

[CW]

No technology, no cars. You wouldn't have to worry about it.

[CW]