
Ask HN: Why don't computer keyboards have a 'forwardspace' and a backspace char - adrian_mrd
I understand the history of the backspace and delete keys, but it strikes me as odd and inefficient that keyboards (especially software based ones) do not have a dedicated key that can remove to the right of the cursor as well: a &#x27;forwardspace&#x27; key if you will. Has any major OS vendor &#x2F; hardware keyboard manufacturer attempted this? Was it part of keyboards before the QWERTY adoption? (note: the insert&#x2F;overwrite would be similar but not functionally the same as this proposal because a forwardspace and backspace would be &#x27;equals&#x27;, at lesst in terms of names and prominence on a keyboard.<p>And how do backspace characters work in right-to-left languages like Arabic, Japanese, etc.
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throwaway5250
My take: That's what the spacebar is. Originally the backspace key did the
inverse. This probably worked a lot more like what we think of as "overwrite"
mode on early terminals.

The "delete" character is something else entirely. It seems to have been
invented to wipe (literally "delete") a position on a paper tape, for example.
That's the reason its character code is all ones (in the seven bit code of the
time). The ones were holes, and you could "delete" any other character (a mix
of holes and not-holes) by punching a hole in every position.

A lot of the rest is just historical accident.

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argimenes
Because keyboards have the most design inertia of all computer hardware
products. The one thing that keyboard makers are loathe to experiment with is
the keys. That's why keyboards in 2018 still have a gigantic CAPSLOCK key when
it is almost never used. Also why in the age of prosumer hardware you don't
see keyboards for programmers with dedicated programming IDE keys, such as a
single key to compile. No matter how innovative (or retro) manufacturers in
keyboard manufacture nobody wants to experiment with the actual key options
that people press.

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throwaway5250
Theory has it that real typists actually _do_ use the CAPSLOCK key. They seem
to be rather rare, though.

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davelnewton
Meh; I do freelance copy-editing and transcription, and I never use it.

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davelnewton
The delete the character "before" the cursor; I'm not sure I understand the
question. RTL languages still have forward and back, they're just RTL: it's
still a backspace.

Re the larger question: historical. Never seen anybody with anything like it.

I'm not sure I'd use it very much; usually my mistakes are things I've just
typed.

When they're not, I have to put my cursor near the error anyway, and if I'm
doing that, I either put it in the right spot to backspace, or I'm performing
larger-than-single-character-scale edits anyway).

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cimmanom
The lack of dedicated key is probably an artifact of the typewriter origins of
the keyboard, where the paper moves under the cursor as you type, and it’s
somewhere between difficult and nonsensical to move forwards rather than
backwards through existing text.

FWIW, Fn-delete works as forward-delete on Mac.

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DanBC
> but it strikes me as odd and inefficient that keyboards (especially software
> based ones) do not have a dedicated key that can remove to the right of the
> cursor as well:

Isn't this the delete key?

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davelnewton
Yes, but not all keyboards have it (e.g., Apple) and you have to combo to get
DEL.

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nikonyrh
So is this a question on why don't Apple keyboards have a DEL key?

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davelnewton
They do--they don't have a backspace key. But they mean backspace.

