line starve

1 definition found

line starve - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  line starve
  
     (MIT, opposite of line feed) 1. To feed paper through a
     printer the wrong way by one line (most printers can't do
     this).  On a display terminal, to move the cursor up to the
     previous line of the screen.  "To print "X squared", you just
     output "X", line starve, "2", line feed."  (The line starve
     causes the "2" to appear on the line above the "X", and the
     line feed gets back to the original line.)
  
     2. A character (or character sequence) that causes a terminal
     to perform this action.  ASCII 26, also called SUB or
     control-Z, was one common line-starve character in the days
     before microcomputers and the X3.64 terminal standard.
     Unlike "line feed", "line starve" is *not* standard ASCII
     terminology.  Even among hackers it is considered silly.
  
     3. (Proposed) A sequence such as \c (used in System V
     echo, as well as nroff and troff) that suppresses a
     newline or other character(s) that would normally be
     emitted.
  
     [Jargon File]
  
     (1995-02-03)