On 13. Dez 2004, at 12:03, Allan Odgaard wrote:
I'm puzzled by the ANSI keyboard showing 'delete' as label on what I've always thought was called the backspace key. Maybe that explains why delete results in (if anything) a backspace in most terminals ;)
The key that is called "backspace" in PCs (the one that removes a character to the left of the insertion point) is called "delete" on Macs. The key that's called "delete" on PCs (the one that removes a character to the right of the insertion point) is called "forward delete" on Macs.
It wasn't always this way. A Mac Plus, for example, still labels the backspace key as "backspace" (and has no forward-delete key). I'm not sure exactly when Apple changed the names of the keys, but I believe it was with the switch to ADB keyboards on the Mac SE and Mac II in 1987. But I'm not able to locate any suitable photos on Google to confirm this theory.