2026-10-16 22:43 UTC
Replies (5)
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@futurebird@sauropods.win 2026-10-16 22:44
They used to be called "carriage returns" because in those days they were pulled by horses.
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@nrmacdonald@mastodon.social 2026-10-16 22:48
@futurebird@sauropods.win return to forever https://youtu.be/1Mjndd4nLtc
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@ophis@brain.worm.pink 2026-10-16 22:53
@futurebird@sauropods.win you could still demonstrate it without resorting to a typewriter by just typing out a bunch of stuff and noting how the cursor "returns" to the left but it took me thinking through mechanical and then electric typewriters to realize that
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@Wyatt_H_Knott@mastodon.sdf.org 2026-10-16 23:16
@futurebird@sauropods.win they called it a carriage return because after you were done with the carriage and unshackled the dinosaurs, you had to return it to the cave you borrowed it from obviously
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@lispi314@udongein.xyz 2026-10-17 00:55
@futurebird@sauropods.win Now that is raising an interesting question. Why did the language I learned computers with call it the equivalent of "enter", rather than return? What exactly does that refer to? Return is about carriage returns, but whatever typewriter mechanism was "enter"? edit: If this is correct, then it really is about data or instruction entry and doesn't refer to anything other than a computer. Huh.