I just noticed that I've seen different behavior across different systems when creating a quick test file (e.g. with sample input) via `cat` and redirection.

Here are the steps to see what I'm talking about:

Run `cat > testfile`.

Type in `helli`, then press backspace, then type `o`.

Press Enter.

Type Ctrl-D to end the input.

Run `od -a testfile`.

On some systems, e.g. Mac, you will get:

```
0000000    h   e   l   l   o  nl                                        
0000006

```

On other systems, e.g. a RHEL 5.7 host that I logged into via MobaXterm on Windows, you may get:

```
0000000    h   e   l   l   i  bs   o  nl                                        
0000010

```

Where is the code that makes for this difference? For example, in the example above, should I suspect MobaXterm, or the RHEL 5 system? Or which layer between my keyboard and the filesystem?

---

This is more a question out of curiosity than a real problem; I can obviously create files without the backspace characters by just using a text editor, but this has tripped me up in the past. One time during a casual presentation/training, I mentioned that creating files via `cat` has this problem with backspace characters being taken literally, only to be shown wrong when it didn't have that effect after all, *on the Macs the students were using.* So it got me curious.