_Jan 25, 2024
TIL tilde (~) as "home" in unix and web directories:

On Unix-like operating systems (including AIX, BSD, Linux and macOS), tilde normally indicates the current user's home directory. [...] This convention derives from the Lear-Siegler ADM-3A terminal in common use during the 1970s, which happened to have the tilde symbol and the word "Home" (for moving the cursor to the upper left) on the same key.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilde#Directories_and_URLs

pic: the ADM-3A
picture of a ADM-3A terminal, w…
Tilde - Wikipedia

Show threadDentaku (Thomas Renger)

@shrik3 @nblr It also has the arrows for cursor movement on H J K L, guess where vi adopted those.

(or the ^ for the beginning of a line in regex syntax – from that same HOME key)

Jan 26, 2024 at 10:42pmWeb
Show thread~nJan 26, 2024
@dentaku @shrik3 something something ^W for a word and ^H for a letter, but that might have been a different platform.
Show threadDentaku (Thomas Renger)Jan 26, 2024

@nblr @shrik3 That's just plain ASCII:
H is 0x48 and backspace is 0x08
G is 0x47 and bell is 0x07

Guess which bit the control-key shifts.