From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.ciao.gmane.io!not-for-mail From: Paul Eggert Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Meaning behind Control-G Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2020 18:51:25 -0700 Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Message-ID: References: <70bb51fd-447d-928c-4d69-1c9673a44471@online.de> <871rnnvmdx.fsf@red-bean.com> <87pnb7sira.fsf@red-bean.com> <87lflcg0k9.fsf@red-bean.com> <0f1cd319-fa8c-4453-b909-fdd36f337906@default> <87zh9scdf8.fsf@warpmail.net> <7w367f6y81.fsf_-_@junk.nocrew.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="ciao.gmane.io:159.69.161.202"; logging-data="2188"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/68.8.0 Cc: Lars Brinkhoff , Gordon Bell , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Stefan Monnier Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Tue Jun 02 03:52:40 2020 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1jfw6a-0000U1-6G for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Tue, 02 Jun 2020 03:52:40 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:42592 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jfw6Z-0005TQ-0o for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Mon, 01 Jun 2020 21:52:39 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:45368) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jfw5g-00050U-T2 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 01 Jun 2020 21:51:45 -0400 Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([131.179.128.68]:48492) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jfw5e-0002uD-Ks for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 01 Jun 2020 21:51:44 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3CDAE160097; Mon, 1 Jun 2020 18:51:27 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10032) with ESMTP id ILJ6pu5yYLvZ; Mon, 1 Jun 2020 18:51:26 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6A1191600D1; Mon, 1 Jun 2020 18:51:26 -0700 (PDT) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at zimbra.cs.ucla.edu Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10026) with ESMTP id H12ABC2bDI4C; Mon, 1 Jun 2020 18:51:26 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from [192.168.1.9] (cpe-23-242-74-103.socal.res.rr.com [23.242.74.103]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 3C171160097; Mon, 1 Jun 2020 18:51:26 -0700 (PDT) Autocrypt: addr=eggert@cs.ucla.edu; prefer-encrypt=mutual; keydata= LS0tLS1CRUdJTiBQR1AgUFVCTElDIEtFWSBCTE9DSy0tLS0tCgptUUlOQkV5QWNtUUJFQURB QXlIMnhvVHU3cHBHNUQzYThGTVpFb243NGRDdmM0K3ExWEEySjJ0QnkycHdhVHFmCmhweHhk R0E5Smo1MFVKM1BENGJTVUVnTjh0TFowc2FuNDdsNVhUQUZMaTI0NTZjaVNsNW04c0thSGxH ZHQ5WG0KQUF0bVhxZVpWSVlYL1VGUzk2ZkR6ZjR4aEVtbS95N0xiWUVQUWRVZHh1NDd4QTVL aFRZcDVibHRGM1dZRHoxWQpnZDdneDA3QXV3cDdpdzdlTnZub0RUQWxLQWw4S1lEWnpiRE5D UUdFYnBZM2VmWkl2UGRlSStGV1FONFcra2doCnkrUDZhdTZQcklJaFlyYWV1YTdYRGRiMkxT MWVuM1NzbUUzUWpxZlJxSS9BMnVlOEpNd3N2WGUvV0szOEV6czYKeDc0aVRhcUkzQUZINmls QWhEcXBNbmQvbXNTRVNORnQ3NkRpTzFaS1FNcjlhbVZQa25qZlBtSklTcWRoZ0IxRApsRWR3 MzRzUk9mNlY4bVp3MHhmcVQ2UEtFNDZMY0ZlZnpzMGtiZzRHT1JmOHZqRzJTZjF0azVlVThN Qml5Ti9iClowM2JLTmpOWU1wT0REUVF3dVA4NGtZTGtYMndCeHhNQWhCeHdiRFZadWR6eERa SjFDMlZYdWpDT0pWeHEya2wKakJNOUVUWXVVR3FkNzVBVzJMWHJMdzYrTXVJc0hGQVlBZ1Jy NytLY3dEZ0JBZndoU In-Reply-To: Content-Language: en-US Received-SPF: pass client-ip=131.179.128.68; envelope-from=eggert@cs.ucla.edu; helo=zimbra.cs.ucla.edu X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: First seen = 2020/06/01 18:46:39 X-ACL-Warn: Detected OS = Linux 3.1-3.10 X-Spam_score_int: -41 X-Spam_score: -4.2 X-Spam_bar: ---- X-Spam_report: (-4.2 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_MED=-2.3, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=_AUTOLEARN X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:251747 Archived-At: On 6/1/20 6:44 AM, Stefan Monnier wrote: > FWIW, the link between C-g and "BEL" is pretty clear: it must be > [G]raham [Bel]l Hah! As long as we're guessing, why not [G]ordon [Bel]l? His early work predates ASCII and Wikipedia says he designed the first UART (this was for the PDP-1) so he was very much in the thick of things when Control-G was invented. I'll cc him in this email to see whether he knows whether Control-G and BEL are related because of him. It's unlikely, though. I looked it up, and BEL goes back to the Western Union code (sometimes called the Baudot-Murray code, ITA2, or CCITT#2) invented in 1901. It was a 5-bit code with an escape, and BEL was an escaped J. The New Zealand inventor Donald Murray invented BEL to ring the mechanical bells in his telegraphic typewriters. (Murray eventually became rich from his teleprinter patents and died a wealthy philosopher in Switzerland.) When ASCII was developed in the early 1960s, BEL was one of the standardized characters for compatibility with ITA2. The developers of ASCII looked at all the control characters to be standardized, and attempted to maximize the Hamming distance between the bit patterns of pairs of control characters where confusion was likely to cause the most damage. (This little tidbit of information comes from page 245 of Charles E Mackenzie's 1980 book "Coded Character Sets, History and Development".) The best person to ask exactly why C-g was assigned to BEL would be Bob Bemer, co-developer of COBOL and sometimes called the "Father of ASCII" for his lead role in ASCII standardization. Unfortunately for us he passed away in 2004. That being said, Western Union and Bell were bitter commercial competitors (see the Telephone Cases of the 1870s and 1880s), and I very much doubt that Western Union would name one of its character codes after Alexander Graham Bell.