4 ms·
Ah yes, CTRL-Q, the most intuitive keybind for resuming a frozen terminal after pressing CTRL-S, the least likely combination to accidentally be pressed while t
by sillysaurusx 3y ago
Ah yes, CTRL-Q, the most intuitive keybind for resuming a frozen terminal after pressing CTRL-S, the least likely combination to accidentally be pressed while typing.
- estebank 3y agoIt's mnemonic! [S]top and [Q]ontinue :o)
- bee_rider 3y ago[Q]ontinue was the next best option, c is already taken up to [C]ill the current process obviously.
- MenhirMike 3y agoReminds me of the game NetHack. How do you consume a potion? Well, you [q]uaff it, of course!
- layer8 3y agoThey really should have switched the latter with Verti[k]al Tab.
- bee_rider 3y agoCTRL-whatever does something funky often enough that I only hit CTRL on purpose.
- peterfirefly 3y agoStop/Qontinue.
- blueflow 3y agox & 0x1F is what the Ctrl Key used to do, with x being the other keypress. This made the ascii control characters accessible using the Control key (hence the name). So you can access Tab with Ctrl+I, the newline characters with Ctrl+J and Ctrl+M, the backspace with Ctrl+H and also XON and XOFF with Ctrl+Q and Ctrl+S.
- db48x 3y agoThey weren’t chosen with mnemonics in mind, because there are 32 of them. You might be interested in the keyboard on the IBM Model 33 teletype (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TTY33ASR.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TTY33ASR.jpg>) which had labels for many (but not all) control characters directly on the keycaps.
- sillysaurusx 3y agoThat’s fascinating. I’m embarrassed to have been making fun of our elder gods without even realizing it. They really were gods for creating such devices, given the constraints at the time. I doubt I could’ve done much better. The most interesting part is that we still use the same keybinds by default 60 years later. Defaults matter a great deal, but one does not expect a 60 year example. Cheers for this. Have a wonderful weekend!
- db48x 3y agoThere’s really no need to be embarrassed; we do a really poor job of teaching people these things. Honestly, it’s basically all path dependence. Features get added all the time, but we just keep layering them on top. A lot of the features that already exist are still useful, so none of them can be removed.
- hollerith 3y agoIBM was never the manufacturer of the Model 33. It was designed, made and sold by the Teletype Corporation.
- db48x 3y agoHuh, you’re right. I’ve been misremembering that for years apparently.