The saga of the backspace key
I feel the need to tell the saga of the epic quest to recover the function of my backspace key.
Now, at work, we have to log into various Unix backends via the Korn shell to do stuff. Over the course of my employment I have learned a few things about unix. Mostly what grep and cd and the pipe do. And ctrl c. And how to play with putty to make the screens look different for different sessions. Oh, and man. Can't forget man. So, my knowledge is greater than it was when I started, but not by a whole lot. I'm still much more comfortable in DOS. I know how to do very specific things in unix, and that's about it. Anyway, about 2 weeks ago, the backspace key stopped working in one of the backends. Instead of removing the last character I typed, I got a ^H. Now, I'm sure someone somewhere has a use for that sort of thing, but I don't. So everytime I screwed up, I had to start a new line. As you can imagine, this got rather time-consuming. In fact, it just about doubled the time I spent on that backend. But I put up with it, since I had no idea how to fix it. Then I come in this morning and log into the various backends. And ack! The backend I use the most has also lost backspace function! NOOOOOOOOO! So I start googling for answers. In short order I discover I can enable vi editting in korn via a simple command. Now, I have a VAGUE idea what vi is, so I try it. Alas, no backspace. So, I know there's another editor in unix, and that's called emacs. Dunno what the difference is, but it's worth a try, right? And sweet sweet success! By use of the simple set -o emacs just after logging in, I have backspace! Yay!
My weekend and my adventurers in capitalism later in the day
Now, at work, we have to log into various Unix backends via the Korn shell to do stuff. Over the course of my employment I have learned a few things about unix. Mostly what grep and cd and the pipe do. And ctrl c. And how to play with putty to make the screens look different for different sessions. Oh, and man. Can't forget man. So, my knowledge is greater than it was when I started, but not by a whole lot. I'm still much more comfortable in DOS. I know how to do very specific things in unix, and that's about it. Anyway, about 2 weeks ago, the backspace key stopped working in one of the backends. Instead of removing the last character I typed, I got a ^H. Now, I'm sure someone somewhere has a use for that sort of thing, but I don't. So everytime I screwed up, I had to start a new line. As you can imagine, this got rather time-consuming. In fact, it just about doubled the time I spent on that backend. But I put up with it, since I had no idea how to fix it. Then I come in this morning and log into the various backends. And ack! The backend I use the most has also lost backspace function! NOOOOOOOOO! So I start googling for answers. In short order I discover I can enable vi editting in korn via a simple command. Now, I have a VAGUE idea what vi is, so I try it. Alas, no backspace. So, I know there's another editor in unix, and that's called emacs. Dunno what the difference is, but it's worth a try, right? And sweet sweet success! By use of the simple set -o emacs just after logging in, I have backspace! Yay!
My weekend and my adventurers in capitalism later in the day