Steve Revilak wrote:
> Having worked in VMS environments, there is one VMS convention (also exists
> in DOS) regarding command line history whose Unix equivalent I'd love to
> know.
> 
> The 'up' arrow-- on VMS systems would cycle backwards through the command
> history, *without* executing the line.  (ie--as if you had re-typed the
> line without pressing <return>.  Useful for dealing with typos, etc.  I'm
> familiar with 'history' and !!, !*, and ![command-number], but these all
> re-execute the command, not allowing changes. (ie--type the command line,
> followed by <return>).
> 
> On a related note, quick question regarding terminal types--arrow keys in
> general.  I have my terminal type set to vt100, which allows the arrow keys
> to work properly in vi, but on command lines, pressing them yeilds a
> control-character combination.  Is this the norm?

I think that this is normal for the standard /bin/sh and /bin/csh.  I know
that there is some kind of POSIX mode that you can turn on in the shell
which allows it to do either vi-style or emacs-style command line editing.

As far as scrolling back through the history list, check out either tcsh
or bash.  The Korn shell (ksh), which I believe we shipped with NetBSD
1.3, may also have this capability.  Personally, I use tcsh.  I believe
that both tcsh and bash are in the packages distribution, but I could be
wrong.

Later.

-- 
Colin Wood                                 cwood@ichips.intel.com
Component Design Engineer - MD6                 Intel Corporation
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I speak only on my own behalf, not for my employer.