The keymapping problem can
be traced back to the time when computers used punched tapes. The only
way to correct a wrongly punched character was to punch additional bits
in the tape (or rather, punch additional bits _out_ of the tape).
Characters with all the bits punched were treated as deleted
characters. See 'man ascii' for a list of the ASCII characterset,
you'll see that DEL, (octal 177, decimal 127 and hexadecimal 7F) is the
one with all the bits punched in (the ASCII code with the highest
value). To be able to overwrite a character it is necessary to undo the
feed between the characters first. For this the ASCII BS (octal 010,
decimal 8, hexadecimal 08) was used. So to erase the last-typed
character, you would have to press first BS to move back one character,
and then DEL to delete the character. In newer computers either BS or
DEL was chosen to move back and delete in one press.