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Destructive backspace
Message
From
10/09/2007 18:16:49
Dragan Nedeljkovich (Online)
Now officially retired
Zrenjanin, Serbia
 
General information
Forum:
Visual FoxPro
Category:
Coding, syntax & commands
Miscellaneous
Thread ID:
01253507
Message ID:
01253577
Views:
25
>>>>What is the hex for a Destructive backspace?
>>>>
>>>>Tim
>>>
>>>0x7F -> 127
>>>What is Destructive BackSpace?
>>
>>The distinction comes from telex (TTY) type of data transmission, where the printed character was forever, i.e. the carriage/printhead couldn't erase anything. The first terminals inherited a lot from this protocol, including a lot of names for control characters (character 7 did physically and literally ring a bell, 10 would force the paper to feed one line, and 13 would cause the carriage to return to the beginning of line). The difference was in the editing capabilities - on paper, deletion would be accomplished by backspacing the head to the left, then printing an overstrike character; on the terminal, the character could have been just erased. So the backspace got a spot in the back row, at the very end of the ASCII table - 127. It moved the cursor (which simulated the carriage) one spot left AND deleted the character on that spot.
>
>Thank you Dragan.
>I didn't knew that.
>But why Destructive? Isn't BackSpace always destructive, like space when you in OVR mode?

Can't be destructive when paper is your display unit :). You could drive Foxplus like that, without a monitor, just Set Print On and then whatever you type, and any results that come, appear on the paper.

So for compatibility's sake (as there were many computers tied to telex outputs and keyboards), they kept the old non-destructive backspace and added the new destructive one. An extensive list of these codes (and related stories) is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Standard_Code_for_Information_Interchange.

back to same old

the first online autobiography, unfinished by design
What, me reckless? I'm full of recks!
Balkans, eh? Count them.
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