9 Aug
2001
9 Aug
'01
9:15 a.m.
on 8/9/01 9:47 AM, Dan Wright at dtwright(a)uiuc.edu wrote:
not sure if this is exactly on-topic, but I figure if
anyone would know, it
would be this bunch... where did the convention of using "^x" to represent
"Ctrl-x" come from? I wonder because you see that convention everywhere, but
it's totally non-intuitave -- i.e. why does the carat symbol mean "hold
control
while pressing the following key"? I think this came up because someone
pointed out that using pine the first time was really hard until they figured
out what "^" meant. so, anyone know where that convention came from?
I believe Wordstar used to display the control sequences for cut and
pasting and other block move type commands in that format in it's menus.
I'm almost positive that versions of Worstar I was using on XT-clones in the
mid-80's were like that. At the time, quite a large number of text editors,
including those included with programs such as TurboBasic, used the Wordstar
commands and conventions as well.
Jeff