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I ask this out of sheer curiosity.

For pasting - why wasn't Ctrl+v made as a shortcut - which is standard - instead of Ctrl+Shift+v - which is not standard?

Same goes with so many other shortcuts (which are in common with other platforms). For scrolling up - Shift+PgUp instead of PgUp, as another example.

Since this is deliberate, of course, then I am sure there is a logical explanation for it?

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  • What are these shortcuts supposed to do?
    – Alvar
    Aug 4, 2014 at 14:12
  • @Alvar: Ctrl+Shift+V pastes what is in the clipboard. Shift+PgUp scrolls up, I think. Aug 4, 2014 at 14:24
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    The usage of Ctrl-V on Unix predates the GUI paste function from Xerox, I think. I suppose the same goes for the others.
    – muru
    Aug 4, 2014 at 14:28

1 Answer 1

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Keyboard shortcuts used by Terminal are not available for programs running in the Terminal. That's why Terminal tries not to use shortcuts that are standard among command line programs.

Ctrl+V is a standard for "Insert verbatim", i.e. you can use for example Ctrl+VReturn to insert a carriage return character (ASCII #13). It is used for example by Bash and some editors.

PgUp is used to scroll in text editors, pages and such, and people would likely get angry if that didn't work.

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  • CTRL-C - Cancel that operation/Stop program run/Script, CTRL-S - Stop transmitting, CTRL-X - Start transmit. Generally CTRL-A equals the input of ASCII code 1, and CTRL-Z ASCII code 26 - and all the ones between in similar manner. Now all you have to to is look up an ASCII code table and decipher the codes in the lower part of the table. The short acronyms shown have (had) a meaning, some of it can still be seen in man terminfo.
    – Hannu
    Aug 4, 2014 at 20:17

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