[comp.sys.mac.comm] versaterm vs. vi on SunOS 4.1

npl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Nathan P Letts) (01/16/91)

Columbia runs suns since they have upgraded in the last month I have found blanck spaces mysteriously appearing on my screen when I run emacs.  EMACS and our
Convex 210 runs fine with versaterm.  I think the university suns are the problem. It seem s to effect the arrow keys and the delete.  I'm not sure what operating system they use.  Suggestions are needed my postings to usenet can't be editted very well. 



Nathan P. Letts    BS1LETTS@CUCHEM.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU
chem etc comp                   nathan@cuchmc.cc.columbia.edu

chas@netcom.UUCP (Chuck Fisher) (01/16/91)

In article <47841@andante.att.com> mp@andante.att.com (Mark Plotnick) writes:
>One person here has versaterm on his home Mac and dials up the UNIX
>systems at work.  He says that he's used the UNIX terminal type "hp"
>(though possibly it's "2621"; we don't know what he types into his
>.profile to set the terminal type) and things have worked fine, under
>SunOS 3.2 and 4.0.1.  Then he got a new Sun that ran SunOS 4.1.  Now he
>says that when he runs "vi" he just gets garbage printed on the
>screen.  Does anybody have any ideas on what we could change to help
>him?  We unfortunately have no info on his type of Mac, version of
>versaterm, or the emulation it's running (we've tried to get more info,
>but it's difficult.  It took weeks before he even told us he was using
>versaterm; we had thought he was using some kind of HP terminal).

For best results using SunOS and VersaTerm, I would suggest installing
the supplied VersaTerm termcap entry in the user's home directory on
the Sun.  When logging into the Sun, specify "versaterm" as the
terminal type.  Complete instructions on installing the supplied
termcap entry are in the VersaTerm manual.

VersaTerm supports several types of DEC terminal emulations along with
Tektronix and Data General, but no HP specific terminals.  Perhaps an
HP can be made to emulate a DEC terminal for the purposes of
compatibility.  Certainly there are native termcap entries supplied
with SunOS for a variety of HP terminals.

Chuck

-- 
Chuck Fisher                                  Work: (800) 359-7997 
chas@netcom.uucp                              Home: (415) 964-2819
{apple,claris,amdahl,tandem}!netcom!chas 
B3 f++ t- dc k s+ m r T   S5 b u g l y- z n- o+ x a v- j+   P7

chas@netcom.UUCP (Chuck Fisher) (01/16/91)

In article <1991Jan15.160140.13177@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> npl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Nathan P Letts) writes:
>Columbia runs suns since they have upgraded in the last month I have found blanck spaces mysteriously appearing on my screen when I run emacs.  EMACS and our
>Convex 210 runs fine with versaterm.  I think the university suns are the problem. It seem s to effect the arrow keys and the delete.  I'm not sure what operating system they use.  Suggestions are needed my postings to usenet can't be editted very well. 

Install the supplied termcap entry for "versaterm" in your home
directory or add it to the system-wide termcap file in /etc.  And make
sure that you specify "versaterm" when you log-in.

Chuck

-- 
Chuck Fisher                                  Work: (800) 359-7997 
chas@netcom.uucp                              Home: (415) 964-2819
{apple,claris,amdahl,tandem}!netcom!chas 
B3 f++ t- dc k s+ m r T   S5 b u g l y- z n- o+ x a v- j+   P7

bruner@sp15.csrd.uiuc.edu (John Bruner) (01/16/91)

> Install the supplied termcap entry for "versaterm" in your home
> directory or add it to the system-wide termcap file in /etc.  And make
> sure that you specify "versaterm" when you log-in.

SunOS 4.1 uses terminfo, not termcap, so defining your own termcap
entry (or TERMCAP environment variable) will have no effect.  You'll
need to create a terminfo file and set the TERMINFO environment
variable to point to it.
--
John Bruner	Center for Supercomputing R&D, University of Illinois
	bruner@csrd.uiuc.edu		(217) 244-4476	

vd09+@andrew.cmu.edu (Vincent M. Del Vecchio) (01/17/91)

> Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.mac.comm: 16-Jan-91 Re: versaterm vs. vi
> on Sun.. Chuck Fisher@netcom.UUCP (900)

> John's right about this.  "termcap" is used on System V-based systems
> and "terminfo" on BSD-based systems.  I first had exposure to SV so I
> generically refer to terminal capability databases as 'termcaps'.  When
> SunOS becomes SVR4 compliant, there'll be lots of changes with which to
> contend, this being one of them.


Uh, nope.  You got it backwards.  termcap is the BSD type, terminfo is
the type used in recent versions of System V.  SunOS 4.0 and earlier
used termcap; apparently they are already changing in the direction of
SVR4 compliance and SunOS 4.1 uses terminfo.