OT: broken/useless ansi - console driver??

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Esak" <john at valar.com>
To: "Fplist (E-mail)" <filepro-list at seaslug.org>
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 11:44 PM
Subject: RE: OT: broken/useless ansi - console driver??


>> 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?
>
> John

Why doesn't scoansi emulation work on a terminal that is not a scoansi 
terminal?
Why don't cd's work in a tape drive? Why doesn't a serial terminal work 
plugged into an ethernet switch?

I agree they should have made the console continue to be a scoansi terminal. 
But it's not. It's a some other kind of terminal. It's no big deal. You are 
not supposed to care what the actualy terminal is, only that termcap and 
terminfo database entries exist that accurately describe it, which they do. 
When dealing with applications that might have their own termcap or 
terminfo, then it matters a little since you have to make a new entry. But, 
the unixware terminal is not actually new and most apps do already have a 
good entry for it just like they do for scoansi. Witness the over 5 year old 
entry in fp's termcap.

The only problem is if you go out of your way to override the things that 
handle this correctly and automatically, and try to specify scoansi where 
scoansi not correct. That's not SCO's fault.

There are numerous reasons why osr6 is not ready for prime time and it was 
wrong for them to be pushing it as hard as they are now, but this isn't one 
of them.

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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