Although the term "backspace" is the traditional name of the key which steps the carriage back and/or[note 3] deletes the previous character, typically to the left of the cursor, the actual key may be labeled in a variety of ways, for example delete,[1] erase,[note 4] or with a left pointing arrow.
This technique (also known as overstrike) is the basis for such spacing modifiers in computer character sets such as the ASCII caret (^, for the circumflex accent).
Backspace composition no longer works with typical modern digital displays or typesetting systems.
The backspace key is commonly used to go back a page or up one level in graphical web or file browsers.
[9] In a mainframe environment, to backspace means to move a magnetic tape backwards, typically to the previous block.