OT: Vertical Tab was Re: indendation question

[Bengt Richter]

On 6 Jan 2004 23:01:36 -0800, frank at chagford.com (Frank Millman) wrote:

>Samuel Walters <swalters_usenet at yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<pan.2004.01.05.23.05.44.722929 at yahoo.com>...
>> 
>> What exactly *is* a vertical tab?  I don't think I've ever seen it on a
>> keyboard or used in the wild.  I think I may have seen it on the
>> keybindings for a mainframe terminal I once used, but I didn't really dig
>> too deep because, as far as operating the mainframe was concerned, I was a
>> well trained monkey who could check and restart failed jobs.
>> 
>> Inquiring minds want to know.
>> 
>> Sam Walters
>
>I could be wrong, but I seem to remember reading years ago that
>vertical tabs were used to control line printers - you could force the
>printer to skip straight to a line number instead of issuing a series
>of line feeds.
>
IIRC some line printers had a punched tape loop that could be punched to indicate
stops for VT and FF. And if the tape broke you wound up with the rest of your box
of fanfold paper all over the floor, since normal gravity was not enough to refold
the amazing spew of output. Add multipart with carbon paper etc for extra fun.

Regards,
Bengt Richter