Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Re: '#' as comment character vs. '#' as erase character
Message-ID: <11388@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 5-Jul-85 12:44:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.11388
Posted: Fri Jul  5 12:44:26 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Jul-85 04:40:35 EDT
References: <291@ucdavis.UUCP> <2401@pegasus.UUCP>, <2360@sun.uucp> <5750@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 10

> >	2) Why were the '#' and '@' characters used as editing characters,
> >	   other than nostalgia for Multics (which used lots of weird IBM
> >	   2741 printing terminals over half-duplex lines, and couldn't
> >	   do much better)...
> 
The older UNIXes in cooked mode would echo everything one typed,
including control characters.  About the only safe characters to
use for "magic" things were printable characters such as \ # @.
This works out better on hardcopy terminals, too, which is what
most of the original UNIX terminals were.