20 Nov
2018
20 Nov
'18
1:55 a.m.
The infection vector feels to me to be X10->X11 -> Xorg.
When X became the ubiquitous desktop system in UNIX, it was bringing
with it the MIT key bindings for editing text inside panes in X
applications (clients). This was by default the Emacs bindings.
The default (pre Bash) shell on BSD, and hence Solaris, was BSD
derived csh. Thus tcsh which had by default emacs bindings. Ksh
required more licence hoops, in some cases you had to buy it. I . am
unsure if its default was vi mode, but the net impact was: if you ran
any desktop system on the main arc of purchase in a university or near
relationship, you ran Dec Ultrix (X11) or OSF/1 (X11) or SunOS (X11,
after their initial foray into their own) or Unisys/Motorola terminals
on a cray (X10/X11) or Humingbird X client on a WIndows PC (X11) or a
tectronix X terminal (X11) or an NCD x terminal (X11)
We got to default edit in the Mosaic for the URL browser bar, by way
of X11 clients: look at that ma: it inherited the MIT emacs key
bindings.
X was the virus. Emacs key bindings went viral.
On Tue, Nov 20, 2018 at 8:19 AM Michael Parson <mparson(a)bl.org> wrote:
On 2018-11-18 22:15, Dave Horsfall wrote:
On Sun, 18 Nov 2018, Chet Ramey wrote:
I first learned about shell shortcuts from an emacs user, and I briefly
considered picking up emacs... Then I found out I could enable vi
keybinding in my shell and squashed that impulse. :)
The only emacs keybindings I still use in the shell are ^R for searching
my history, ^W for deleting words, and occasional use of ^K for killing
text to EOL. Other than ^R, I swap between the vi and emacs bindings
for those others, just depending on where my cursor is on the line.
--
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX
KF5LGQ It's not clear how widespread this is, but
on my Mac OS X system,
emacs key bindings are pervasive. TextEdit, text controls in apps and
browsers, pretty much everything understands the basic emacs
keybinding.
As a Mac user I never noticed that, but I'll admit to using EMACS key
bindings in the various shells, despite being a VI user... A bit like
using CSH at the terminal, but never for scripting :-)