In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

I find the Mac one good enough for my needs. But I need to use SpamSieve with it.

I presume SpamSieve is an add on to get rid of spam, I would have thought your email provider would have done that?

aaaahhhhhh, why do mac use CMD instead of CTRL to for things like cup, copy and paste?
I will get used to it, but

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

aaaahhhhhh, why do mac use CMD instead of CTRL to for things like cup, copy and paste?

Because they can? If you can get the Apple large bluetooth keyboard, it has a layout similar to the PC 102key layout, and makes switching much easier (or if you run Windows/Linux in virtual machines).

Its insanely expensive now, with the TouchID built in... ugh!

It's a legacy of pre-OSX, left in to ease transition and still there.

Or because they were first (or at least the first to bring cut/copy/paste to a consumer graphical user interface). And they chose to add the CMD key to do these things.

When Microsoft came to do the same thing they didn't have the luxury of designing their own keyboard so they were stuck with the control key.

Which lead to unfortunate compromises like ctrl-c not working in the command window in Windows, because ctrl-c is generally used for interrupting running command line processes. A situation which is still there in the default command line environment in Windows 37 years later!

Before ctrl-x, ctrl-c, ctrl-v it was even more wacky: shift-del, ctrl-ins, shift-ins.

Not to mention every text editor on MSDOS having completely different key combinations for cut/copy/paste. I still use the Wordstar ctrl-k, b | ctrl-k, k | ctrl-k c | ctrl-k v combinations when I'm editing text over on Linux (I never did get to grips with the nonsense that is vi, first thing I do on a new Linux install is to add the Joe text editor).

Curiously ctrl-x, ctrl-c, ctrl-v work in Microsoft apps on the Mac, alongside the standard CMD based ones.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

Or because they were first (or at least the first to bring cut/copy/paste to a consumer graphical user interface). And they chose to add the CMD key to do these things.

When Microsoft came to do the same thing they didn't have the luxury of designing their own keyboard so they were stuck with the control key.

My memory of history is different, MS used Shift+Insert and other odd combinations for Windows 1.0, through to 3.0, and only adopted the Ctrl+X, C, V in Windows 3.1 as part of adopting IBM’s Common User Access design guide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access

Which lead to unfortunate compromises like ctrl-c not working in the command window in Windows, because ctrl-c is generally used for interrupting running command line processes. A situation which is still there in the default command line environment in Windows 37 years later!

Um, Ctrl+C works in the Windows 9x era “Dos prompt” and in the NT Console window… not sure why it doesn’t for you. Frequently use it to terminate legacy batch (BAT) and modern command (CMD) files.

Before ctrl-x, ctrl-c, ctrl-v it was even more wacky: shift-del, ctrl-ins, shift-ins.

Yep, learnt those on Win1.0

Not to mention every text editor on MSDOS having completely different key combinations for cut/copy/paste. I still use the Wordstar ctrl-k, b | ctrl-k, k | ctrl-k c | ctrl-k v combinations when I'm editing text over on Linux (I never did get to grips with the nonsense that is vi, first thing I do on a new Linux install is to add the Joe text editor).

Those all pre-date MS DOS, the Wordstar CTRL K, D, for exit and save was on the CPM 2.2 Osborne 1 I had as a kid, even continued onto the CPM3 (CPM+) system that the Amstrad PCW word processors came with.

Its worth learning VI when your distro crashes and you have to boot into single user mode, or you have to use a Solaris/SunOS box, or a SCO box, or even a Cisco or Juniper router. They ALL have vi or vim available.

The most useful is quit without saving :q!

Curiously ctrl-x, ctrl-c, ctrl-v work in Microsoft apps on the Mac, alongside the standard CMD based ones.

Probably made some MS developer very happy

I think you have misunderstood the statement about Ctrl-c not working in a command Window. The statement was that it doesn’t work as a copy command, precisely because of its traditional break function.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

Or because they were first (or at least the first to bring cut/copy/paste to a consumer graphical user interface). And they chose to add the CMD key to do these things.

When Microsoft came to do the same thing they didn't have the luxury of designing their own keyboard so they were stuck with the control key.

My memory of history is different, MS used Shift+Insert and other odd combinations for Windows 1.0, through to 3.0, and only adopted the Ctrl+X, C, V in Windows 3.1 as part of adopting IBM’s Common User Access design guide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access

I may well have mixed up the timing/sequence on that (though I did attempt to check my memory with some Googling), it was a long time ago after all...

Which lead to unfortunate compromises like ctrl-c not working in the command window in Windows, because ctrl-c is generally used for interrupting running command line processes. A situation which is still there in the default command line environment in Windows 37 years later!

Um, Ctrl+C works in the Windows 9x era “Dos prompt” and in the NT Console window… not sure why it doesn’t for you. Frequently use it to terminate legacy batch (BAT) and modern command (CMD) files.

You misunderstood what I was saying. The unfortunate compromise is that ctrl-c doesn't work for copying in a command window, because it has to be used for interrupting the running process.

Wikipedia suggests that it was IBM CUA that settled on shift-del, ctrl-ins, ctrl-del and that it was Microsoft that added ctrl-x/ctrl-c/ctrl-v later to line up with the Mac (in Win 3.1 as you said, but they were actually departing from CUA).

I suspect IBM would have recognised that ctrl-c wasn't a good choice...

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

I think you have misunderstood the statement about Ctrl-c not working in a command Window. The statement was that it doesn’t work as a copy command, precisely because of its traditional break function.

Ahh yes… hence the drag to highlight and right click with mouse (from NT onwards).

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

I may well have mixed up the timing/sequence on that (though I did attempt to check my memory with some Googling), it was a long time ago after all...

I was sure OS/2 used X/C/V but it appears its my memory that was wrong.. apologies!

You misunderstood what I was saying. The unfortunate compromise is that ctrl-c doesn't work for copying in a command window, because it has to be used for interrupting the running process.

As Tiny pointed out the same… gotcha, and at least from NT onwards you can highlight with mouse and right click. (Or pipe output to CLIP).