A traditional operating system (such as UNIXΓäó) provides "control characters" by which you can signal the operating system in various ways. Two of the most common control characters are interrupt (stop that at once!) and flush output (I don't want to see all that).
Sometimes control characters are also used as part of the interface to a particular application, such as an editor or a screen-based browsing program; for instance, an editor's documentation might tell you to press control-R in order to replace text.
Some of the functions of control characters are available in the Controls menu, which descends from the Network menu. Using these commands, such as "Flush Output", frees you from having to remember the form each control character takes on various operating systems you use.
However, sometimes you will still need to type a control character, even in this, the best of all possible worlds. A control character on an ordinary (non-Mac) terminal is typed by holding down the "Control" key while pressing another key. The Mac SE and Mac II keyboards have a control key; use this to generate control characters as needed.
The Mac Plus and earlier keyboards do not have a Control key, and the Command or Clover key next to the space bar is reserved for the Mac's menu power keys. In order to type a control character in TOPS Terminal with a Mac Plus keyboard, hold down the Shift and Clover keys at the same time while pressing the desired alphabetical key.
If you prefer, you can use the "Your Preferences..." command from the "Settings" menu so that this convention is reversed, that is, so a control key is pressed using the Clover key by itself, while a local Mac shortcut requires pressing both Clover and Shift keys. This applies only when the frontmost window is an active terminal session; at all other times the normal Mac convention of Clover by itself for menu shortcuts remains in force.
