[nycbug-talk] terminals, telnet, blast from past

[Ray Lai]

On Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 12:22:49AM -0400, Miles Nordin wrote:
> >>>>> "rl" == Ray Lai <nycbug at cyth.net> writes:
>     rl> Just because ^H is bound to the Help key in emacs doesn't mean
>     rl> it is wrong.
> 
> This, I do not understand.
> 
> That not everyone uses emacs, nor should be forced to use emacs, I do
> completely understand.  That some competent people with opinions of
> merit hate emacs, I also understand.  That it's ``not wrong'' for a
> Unix terminal to work improperly with emacs, I cannot accept.  This is
> a very old Unix program that is absolutely expected to be installed
> and working on every decent Unix shell.  Even a Unix sysadmin who
> hates emacs understands his absolute obligation to install it on a
> shell he offers to others, though he may leave it off a shell meant
> exclusively for his own use.
> 
> If the delivered terminal doesn't work with emacs, then emacs users
> will have to fix it---hence, it's broken.
> 
> It is normal for a decent Unix shell to be broken in a variety of ways
> that you have to fix yourself (or ask some other user how to fix).
> But to say it's not broken is completely ridiculous.  It _is_ broken,
> and I _have_ fixed it myself, numerous times, because I use emacs, and
> it *does not work* until I *fix* the *broken* backspace key period (.)
> 
> and anyway, if you want to be pedantic, I have two actual vt220's, and
> when you press that key they send ^?.  You don't get to choose---they
> just send ^? no matter what.  so don't come telling me your vt220
> emulator that sends ^H isn't broken because the vt220 emulator in
> Procomm Plus for DOS sent ^H, too, and yours is like that one, and
> some devices designed to work with Procomm Plus for DOS expect ^H so
> it is just a matter of preference.  I have a vt220.  Mine isn't an
> emulator.  It's a vt220.  It's designed to work with Unix, and Unix is
> designed to work with it.  It sends ^?.  The emacs issue is
> overwhelmingly the most important one, but even if it weren't for
> that, anyone who sends or expects ^H---I don't care if they're
> Microsoft or SGI or FreeBSD or Procomm Plus---is _wrong_.  They were
> wrong in 1983 when my vt220 was manufactured, wrong yesterday, and
> will be wrong tomorrow, until they fix it, or they ship it broken and
> I fix it for them.

I was saying that emacs is not the standard for terminal emulation.

The reasons you stated above, however, are valid.

-Ray-