line starve
[MIT] 1. vi. To feed paper through a printer the wrong way by
one line (most printers can't do this). On a display terminal, to
move the cursor up to the previous line of the screen. "To print
`X squared', you just output `X', line starve, `2', line feed."
(The line starve causes the `2' to appear on the line above the
`X', and the line feed gets back to the original line.) 2. n. A
character (or character sequence) that causes a terminal to
perform this action. ASCII 0011010, also called SUB or control-Z,
was one common line-starve character in the days before
microcomputers and the X3.64 terminal standard. Today, the term
might be used for the ISO reverse line feed character 0x8D.
Unlike `line feed', `line starve' is not standard ASCII terminology. Even among hackers it is
considered a bit silly. 3. [proposed] A sequence such as \c (used
in System V echo, as well as nroff
and troff) that suppresses a newline or other character(s) that would
normally be emitted.