[OT] "The Condescending UI" (was: Do we need Win95/98/Me support?)

[Stewart Gordon]

On 26/01/2012 15:41, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:20:38 -0500, David Nadlinger <see at klickverbot.at> wrote:
>
>> On 1/26/12 4:06 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>>> […]And the
>>> backspace key is labeled delete, and I still don't know how to do what a
>>> normal delete key would do (delete the character that follows the
>>> cursor) can someone tell me?

Who decides what constitutes a "normal delete key"?  Back in the days of 8-bit home 
computers (Spectrum, BBC, C64 et al), delete tended to mean delete to the left.  Then 
there was the Amstrad PCW line, with "DEL→" and "←DEL" next to each other.  Since then 
it's become more or less standard that delete means delete to the right, delete to the 
left being called backspace.

(Though even on systems with both these keys, it's taken time to standardise their 
meanings.  I grew up partly with a primitive text editor called RPED, in which delete 
deleted to the left, and backspace (IIRC) just moved the cursor left.)

>> Fn + Backspace, on my Macbook Pro.
>
> Thank you :) I will try it next time I use my macbook pro. And I forgot about that Fn key!
> Though that's pretty much standard on most laptops these days.

I've been reminded of the iMac G3 that I was made to use for some of my time as a PhD 
student.  Just the backspace key, no delete key.  And no Fn key to make some of the keys 
double as different keys - those keys they felt people could live without they just left off.

Stewart.