[comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt] Using curses and troff on AIX 2.[12] RT 6150

achim@gmdzi.UUCP (Achim Klabunde) (07/22/88)

I got some problems using curses under AIX 2.[12] on an RT6150.
The terminal types concerned are the IBM3161/3163, the 6150 console, but
also the vt220. (I did not try any other).

It seems that the installed terminfo does not have complete information
for any of the mentioned terminal types, so that curses cannot do more
than half of what it's supposed to do.

For both the IBM terminals, getch always returns KEY_ESC2+'q' for many of 
the keys on the keyboard. This is especially annoying as it concerns the
Key Send (ibm3161/3) resp. ACTION (6150) and all the Shift/Ctrl-F1..F12
combinations.

I found a workaround by looking at the (undocumented) variable ESCSTR and
translating the contents to a self-defined KEY_ACTION constant depending
on the contens of the environment variable TERM. But I don't think that
this very machine dependent programming is the correct way.

The vt220 never does print the correct box characters when putting a box
around a window. The best we acchieved was using the default characters
('+-|') by removing all bx definitions from terminfo. But there must be
a better way.

I will appreciate any hints or experiences in regard of this problem.

My second question is for the text formatter troff:
- what do I have to do to make it recognize the laser printer
- and is there a way to customize it for different printer types?

I thank everybody in advance for replies. Please e-mail!


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 Achim Klabunde
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