How did the term "caret" for text insertion evolve?

Question

Where did the term "caret" originate for a text insertion point? I've tried to google for it, but this is something difficult to locate (even my historic computer reference books don't seem to help here).

I'm reasonably sure I remember some archaic Wang/mainframe apps that used a literal caret (ie: ^) as a text insertion mark, but I couldn't remember one for the life of me.

This is an example using the caret as an insertion point^

Yeah, I know that I can find the meaning of caret by googling it directly, but I'm looking for for a real etymology here - ie: someone who has used a text editor system with a real, live caret symbol as a text insertion point. This sort of stuff is interesting to me - like the origin of the use of the term "bug" for a mouse pointer.

Answer 1

Wikipedia says:

...comes from the Latin caret, "it lacks", from 'carēre', to lack; to be separated from; to be free from...

Answer 2

From wikipedia "The term comes from the Latin caret, "it lacks", from 'carēre', to lack;" you use it in marking typos to show where to insert a correction

Answer 3

It comes from pen-and-paper text editing, where a ^ mark is used to indicate inserted text. The mark is named for its purpose according to the Latin derivation noted by others.

Answer 4

This term came about from older unix systems that used the caret symbol as a text insertion indicator

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursor_(computers)