1. In typewriters, a typist would, for example, type a lowercase letter A with acute accent (á) by typing a lowercase letter A, backspace and then the acute accent key (also known as overstrike ). This is the basis for such spacing modifiers in computer character sets such as the ASCII caret (^, for the circumflex accent).

Das Steuerzeichen für den Backspace (BS) hat im ASCII den Wert 8 und entspricht in vielen Terminals ^H ( Strg -H).