[EchoAbstract]

Oddly enough the ctrl key in the home row is a Unix thing (I think it's a Sun invention, but I don't recall). On the original space cadet keyboard (and all the Symbolics keyboards), Rub Out is located where modern day Caps Lock is found (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-cadet_keyboard). Ctrl is still located on the bottom row.

Has anyone tried remapping a delete key to where the Caps Lock key is found? Is there anyone with a real space cadet keyboard or symbolics keyboard that can comment on using it with vim or emacs?

[ScottBurson]

CTRL next to A was, I believe, its original location. That's where it was on the Teletype Model 33, which dates back to 1963, and I'm not aware of an earlier keyboard that had a CTRL key.

In the 1970s, most terminals continued with this placement. I believe the modern practice of putting Caps Lock there came in with the first IBM PC -- copied, of course, from their typewriter keyboards.

Being a longtime Lisp Machine user, I had that key mapped to Backspace on my Unix workstations into the late 1990s, but I couldn't do that remapping on my PowerBook, so I gave up -- it was too confusing to have Backspace in different places on different machines. (I think the remapping is actually possible with OS X, but I've never bothered. It's certainly possible with Linux.)

[EchoAbstract]

I didn't know that about the ASR-33 (haven't actually seen one), all my experience has been with unix and PC keyboards (plus some WYSE terminals).

I agree with it being confusing to have the same key jump around while you type, which is why I gave up re-mapping altogether (at my last job I was using 5 different systems that each would have required a remap, and I wasn't able to remap on each system). To much dissonance when trying to figure out why a key is not doing what you think it should be doing.

[rprimus]

Here is the xmodmap I use in Linux:

  remove Lock = Caps_Lock
  clear Lock
  keysym  Caps_Lock =    Control_L  BackSpace  Escape  BackSpace
  add Control = Control_L

I've been playing with KR4MB and set Control_L to Control_L (+ When you type Control_L only, send Delete) + [KeyRepeat]

This is causing some angst, as I've discovered I sometimes tend to hold down the CapsLock key before hitting another key. It's long enough for multiple deletes to be sent to an application (eg using Vrome in Chrome).

Shift_R has been remapped to <Esc>.

[stevelosh]

> Has anyone tried remapping a delete key to where the Caps Lock key is found?

The Colemak keyboard layout does that.

[lri]

It doesn't work with the Colemak input method that comes with OS X though. I don't think there's any way to change caps lock to delete in a keylayout file, but you can always use PCKeyboardHack.