Make real tabs that stay tabs

[Harry Putnam]

I know how to insert tabs in emacs I thought.

C-q <tab>

And sure enough the cursor jumps like a tab was inserted.

So insert 2 or three but OOPS If I decide to back one out with
backspace I'm backing by spaces not by tabs.

Seems like if I take care to insert a real tab then it ought to act
like a real tab when I backspace over it too.

Recently I found myself correcting an rsnapshot.conf file where things
MUST be separated by tabs.. one way to test is to back over what is
there and see if your cursor jumps a tabs worth.  But apparently that
cannot be done with emacs.

I seem to recall being able to do that in the past.

Can someone explain this to me.