Escape

The Escape symbol was used in computer terminals, printers, text processing systems, and telecommunication equipment. Its main role was to input control sequences and change the operating modes of devices.

It also served to provide an additional level of control over devices and programs. Instead of using separate control characters for each command, ESC could be combined with other characters to create sequences that represent more complex commands or functions. This allowed for a wider range of control commands to be processed, especially in terminals and text editors.

When it comes to modern computer systems and applications, the U+001B symbol is still actively used there, especially in the context of terminal control, terminal emulators, and some text editors. For example, ESC is often used to switch between normal and visual modes of operation in the Vim editor.

Like many other control symbols, this one has no visible representation and doesn't occupy a lot of space on screen or in typed text. However, there is a separate symbol in Control Pictures2400–243F representing the graphical image of the Escape symbol as the abbreviation ESC (Escape) — ␛.

The symbol “Escape” is included in the “C0 controls” subblock of the “Basic Latin” block and was approved as part of Unicode version 1.1 in 1993.