This may be OT here, but...
in some contexts, Ctrl-S (along with Ctrl-Q)
is used for software flow control.
I think one of them is X-OFF and the other is X-ON.
I think some terminals or other devices which
accept and/or forward data to or from the user,
even generate X-OFF "automatically" when
appropriate, e.g., due to line congestion or
something like that...
(and then I guess X-ON later when appropriate)
Just my 0.02, from
-- 
Mike Schwartz
Glendale  AZ
schwartz@acm.org
Mike.L.Schwartz@gmail.com

On 9/18/06, Dazed_75 <lthielster@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have been experimenting with this very cool feature.  It appears that
> the Ctrl-S part is not working in bash in ubuntu 6.06 for me.  If I
> display history, use ctrl-r to reverse search to a command and then ctrl-r
> one or more times, I can do ctrl-s as much as I care to but the found
> command line does not change.  I can still ctrl-r to go further, ENTER to
> execute, or ctrl-o to execute and bring up the next line from history ready
> for execution (that is VERY cool BTW).
>
> Any thoughts?  Might this be specific to some distro or maybe disabled in
> ububtu for some strange reason?
>
>
> On 9/18/06, Paul Dickson < paul@permanentmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, 14 Sep 2006 14:40:38 +0000, Shawn Badger wrote:
> >
> > > I don't know how many of you receive this weekly newsletter from Linux
> > > Journal. They have a section called The Brain Trust which had a tip
> > that
> > > I never heard of for searching the history in a Bash shell. Here is
> > the
> > > excerpt from the newsletter:
> > >
> > >  THE BRAIN TRUST: READERS SHARE THEIR EXPERTISE
> > >
> > >    This week we have a contribution from Jim C.:
> > >
> > >    "In the technical tips section of your newsletter on 9/5/06, you
> > > referred to
> > >    Bret's alias for searching bash history.  Why create an alias when
> > > bash
> > >    gives the user the 'reverse-i-search' and 'forward-i-search'
> > > features?
> > >
> > >    At the command line, press Ctrl-R and see this appear on the
> > screen:
> > >
> > >                 (reverse-i-search)`':
> > >
> > >    "Then press the characters of the search pattern desired, and bash
> > > will display the nearest line from the current history position
> > matching
> > > the pattern.  Press Ctrl-R again to search the next nearest line;
> > press
> > > Ctrl-S to search forward.  Press enter to accept and immediately
> > execute
> > > the line displayed.  Press a left or right cursor key to accept and
> > edit
> > > the line. Press Ctrl-C to abandon the search.
> > >
> > >    "Much simpler than searching through a possibly long list from a
> > grep
> > >    search."
> > >
> >
> > There's Ctrl-O, which acts like you pressed enter, but after the command
> >
> > completes, the very next command line pops up for pressing enter (or
> > ctrl-o again or editing).  This makes recycling a series of command
> > lines
> > over and over as easy as just pressing Ctrl-O.
> >
> >         -Paul
> >
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