Appearance
Backspace (BS)
BS (0x08) moves the cursor one position to the left. It does not delete the character — the character remains until overwritten. The cursor stops at column 1 and does not wrap to the previous line.
Backspace is a control character, not an erase command. The hardware-era distinction still matters: BS moves the print position, while the application must overwrite with a space if it wants deletion. Shells and line editors combine BS, space, and BS again for the familiar destructive-backspace visual effect.
How this is testedautomated
Write "AB\x08C", verify backspace moved cursor back so C overwrote B at col 1, while A remains at col 0.
Write "AB\x08C", verify backspace moved cursor back so C overwrote B at col 1, while A remains at col 0.
The same probe runs against headless backends (via Termless) and real terminal apps (via a daemon launched in each terminal). This lets us distinguish parser correctness from rendering correctness.
Analysis2026-05-17
Supported by all 12 tested terminals — universal adoption. Part of the Core TUI baseline.
Supported by 13 of 14 backends (93%)
Terminal Applications
| Terminal | Version | Support | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| iTerm2 | 3.6.9 | ✓ yes | |
| Ghostty | 1.3.1 | ✓ yes | |
| VS Code | ✓ yes | ||
| Warp | ✓ yes | ||
| Kitty | 0.46.2 | ✓ yes | |
| Cursor | ✓ yes | ||
| Terminal.app | ✓ yes |