Thursday 9 February 2023

Carriage return

If we may talk about computers for a moment, when you press the return or enter key on a computer keyboard you are commonly inserting a new line into a document and returning the cursor to the start of that new line. This is represented in the PC DOS world as a carriage return followed by a line feed or .

However, on a typical computer keyboard (an example from my Macbook shown below) the logo on the enter key shows a line feed followed by a carriage return. So, why is there this difference? The answer is of course: typewriters! On a mechanical typewriter you would typically move to the next line before returning the carriage ready for the next line using the Line Space or Carriage Return Lever (the name seems to vary depending on the manufacturer). So, even if you do not use typewriters anymore in your normal day, you can still be reminded of the technology now and then.