> > ^? is the code for the [DEL] or [DELETE] key on physical terminals, that's why it's an ASCII standard. > When the PC bucket keyboards came, IBM in their us

> > ^? is the code for the [DEL] or [DELETE] key on physical terminals, that's why it's an ASCII standard. > When the PC bucket keyboards came, IBM in their usual idiocy simply put the [BACKSPACE] key where the [DELETE] key normally is, and what's worse, they made it not only move back one space but delete too. Thus came the sadness of everlasting redefining of deletion to be ^H when using a PC bucket keyboard. Indeed. And to confuse things even further, the [DEL] key on IBM keyboards sends the following ANSI escape sequence: [27 91 51 126] So we now have 3 different standards for deleting characters (and that's before you start looking at the escape sequences for deleting rows, nor supporting vi and/or emacs/readline bindings).