OT: broken/useless ansi - console driver??

[Jean-Pierre A. Radley]

John Esak propounded (on Mon, Oct 24, 2005 at 11:44:03PM -0400):
| > If you log in via telnet or ssh, FacetWin, or Anzio, or using a scoterm
| > in X Window, scoansi should be your default TERM, and ansi will work too.
| >
| > --
| > JP
| 
| My god JP! You've put it in a nutshell! This is precisely the point. If it
| works in all these cases, (as I've been using as a workaround..) why in the
| world doesn't soansi work on the console - as it always has?

Let's remember the point that termcap|terminfo entries are more
*de*scriptive than *pro*scriptive (filePro's termcap file does contain
proscriptive key-label entries).

In Unixware, and in OpenServer 6 with its UnixWare underpinnings,
'scoansi' simply does not decribe the console properties -- 'at386-ie'
describes the console.

Mutatis mutandis, you do not set TERM to wy60 or to dt100 when you're
on an OSR 6 pseudo-tty (used by telnet or ssh or scoterm), because they
don't describe the workings of pseudo-ttys -- scoansi does so.

IOW, you use the TERM entry which describes the characterisics of the tty
you are using.

I'm not trying to make any case about the behavior of the Unixware
console driver.  Bob Rasmussen has already noted some of its good points
in this thread.  But try this command, once in a pseudo-tty, and once at
the console:

	cat /usr/lib/terminfo/terminfo.src

-- 
JP