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@ was actually the try driver's default kill character through 7th Edition or thereabouts. It was changed to ^U when CRT terminals became common, since those c
by kbob 8y ago
@ was actually the try driver's default kill character through 7th Edition or thereabouts. It was changed to ^U when CRT terminals became common, since those could actually erase the input, and there was no need to leave a visible marker showing killed text.
I think the erasing behavior came from 2BSD. That's where I saw it first in Unix.
- bitofhope 8y agoYep, I assume the change was due to change from paper teletypes to CRT terminals. 2BSD is interesting, because that would make this likely a V7/SysIII/SysV poster since in 1983 they were already releasing 4.2BSD. The Unix Programming Environment was released in 1984 so that part might have confused BSD users already back when it was released! I wouldn't be surprised if AT&T continued with @ and # all the way to SVR4.