The ubiquitous Ctrl-C shortcut for “interrupt” originated from ancient teletype terminals. Early computers communicated over slow, mechanical teleprinters. When bored operators wanted to abruptly cancel transmissions, they hit “Control+C”—the ASCII ETX (End-of-Text) character—to tell the remote end to stop talking already. Decades later, we blindly mash Ctrl-C to halt runaway processes, blissfully unaware we’re reenacting the impatient tantrums of long-dead telegraph operators. Unix’s finest traditions, always rooted in impatience and frustration.
