Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751544AbWLQA6S (ORCPT ); Sat, 16 Dec 2006 19:58:18 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751543AbWLQA6S (ORCPT ); Sat, 16 Dec 2006 19:58:18 -0500 Received: from smtpout09-04.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net ([64.202.165.17]:52471 "HELO smtpout09-04.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S1751542AbWLQA6R (ORCPT ); Sat, 16 Dec 2006 19:58:17 -0500 X-Greylist: delayed 401 seconds by postgrey-1.27 at vger.kernel.org; Sat, 16 Dec 2006 19:58:17 EST Message-ID: <45849497.7070206@seclark.us> Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 19:51:35 -0500 From: Stephen Clark Reply-To: Stephen.Clark@seclark.us User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux 2.2.16-22smp i686; en-US; m18) Gecko/20010110 Netscape6/6.5 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jan Engelhardt CC: Pavel Machek , James Lockie , Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: [Fwd: escape key] References: <1166058290.2964.15.camel@monteirov> <20061213214140.df6111f5.randy.dunlap@oracle.com> <4580E985.2090208@lockie.ca> <20061216084542.GD4049@ucw.cz> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2188 Lines: 74 Jan Engelhardt wrote: >On Dec 16 2006 08:45, Pavel Machek wrote: > > >>>Two escapes works now. :-) >>> >>> >>Actually could we fix our consoles, somehow, to make esc usable? >>Having important key like esc unusable on consoles is quite ugly. >> >> > >It's something between a misdesign and a misconfiguration of the ESC key. > >In other words, many unices make ESC generate ^[, the general >terminal escape character that is _also_ generated by keys like "up", >^[[A. > >MS-DOS, or rather QBASIC's, Turbo BASIC's and other implementation of >keys, does not have this "bug": here ESC generates "\x1B" and "up" >generates "\x00H" IIRC. There is no key defined to generate "\x00". >=> All fits nicely. > >So I see two steps: > > - making ESC generate something else than ^[, or making function > keys do something else > > - fixing the terminfo description and the xterms > > - possibly creating a new termtype ("linux2" or "xterm2") so as to > not tamper with compatibility > >Then text-console graphic applications (ncurses, slang, etc.) would >not need to wait the defined one second for an escape sequence to >complete. > >HOWEVER, unix people probably _had a reason_ to make ESC generate >part of what function keys do. Should my UP key go broke, I could >still - though probably tedious - reproduce it by hitting the three >keys ESC [ A. Problem, as pointed out, is that ESC has long been used >by the majority of people back then for something else than doing >terminal sequences by hand: DOS, apps, games, Windows GUIs, and, >I suppose, even X11. > > > > -`J' > > Hi, do man ascii - ESC is 0x1b. Thats what the esc key should generate - it sometimes echoed as ^[ because the [ = 0x5b Steve -- "They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." (Ben Franklin) "The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases." (Thomas Jefferson) - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/