how to backspace in vi 2552

No. It uses ^H for help. That is the problem. That meant that emacs users fought the use of ^H for backspace.

No they had only one key which was labeled del but was used for backspace, since backspace is far more used than forward delete.

"typical " what?

And he writes in Octal! A real oldtimer. Backspace on ALL PC keyboards is the ASCII standard ^H= 0x08 Del is 0x7f

No they are not.

In standards, a different standard IS in opposition. So, you are quibbling over one year? 40 years ago?

Oops, my bad. The poor babies could not live without their emacs, not their vi.

Ah yes, Just how many of those non-PC keyboards now exist? And ASCII has been the standard now for 41 years according to you. And yet, they cannot go ahead and follow that standard.

By Linux I mean the distributions, not the kernel. I understand that the kernel does not care. Only the interface between typewriter and machine card. However, lots of the very low level routines even in the kernel use ^H as backspace.

Because 99.9% of systems have PC keyboards attached, and 99.9% of distributions are set up for DEC keyboards, not PC keyboards.

Anyway, I tried to actually, in the midst of my rant, give the asker some solutions to his problems. You I notice gave none at all.

As I said, 99.9 % of keyboards used with Linux use a PC keyboard. ( and yes, that statistic is made up).

If only I could just match my system. The problem is that the keyboard junk is hidden in hundreds of places in the system. For example, if I set ^H as backspace as ASCII says, then if I benightedly use emacs, I discover I am constantly calling up Help. And if I set ^? then loads of little programs have ^H hard coded in as backspace, and I have to type ^H instead of backspace. Ie, It is simply not possible to match the distro to *your* PC.