RE: ansi/vt100 cursor issue

[Barnaby Falls]

> Date: 19 May 2004 08:49:41 +0200
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> Subject: Re: ansi/vt100 cursor issue
> To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Message-ID: <uk6z829oa.fsf@gnu.org>
>
> > From: "Barnaby Falls" <barnabyf@hotmail.com>
> > Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 13:25:32 -0700
> >
> > I run emacs 21.2 on Linux and want to get the color syntax highlighting 
> and
> > all that. When I run with TERM=vt100 I get a gray and bold highlighting 
> and
> > the cursor appears where it should.
>
> That's because vt100 doesn't support colors.
>
> > However, if I run with TERM=ansi, I get
> > the cool color syntax highlighting but the cursor is all the way in the 
> top
> > right corner of the window and some text is wrapped and starts at the 
> end of
> > the previous line.
>
> Sounds like "ansi" does not accurately describe your terminal: the
> cursor motion commands are incorrect.
>
> > This all just regular text emacs, no X. Any ideas on how
> > to correct this so I can get emacs working with TERM=ansi?
>
> What terminal do you _actually_ use?  You need to point TERM to the
> name of that terminal, not some more-or-less arbitrary name like
> "ansi".

I use the SSH Secure Shell Client (ssh.com). It allows you to set the 
terminal answerback type, I have it set to `ansi'. But I just removed that 
setting and logged on again and got the following:
$ echo $TERM
vt100

So I guess I'm trying to get colors in a terminal application (SSH) that 
cannot handle it. Seeing this, I now tried this from a regular XP command 
prompt and ran ssh to connect to the computer and got the following:
$ echo $TERM
cygwin

The colors show up nicely and I think I see what you mean by using some 
arbitrary name for the TERM setting. So it looks like the SSH shell client I 
am using doesn't support ansi. Thanks alot for clearing that up.

Barnaby. . .

> AFAIK, GNU/Linux systems have TERM set to the right string
> automatically, so you shouldn't need to change that yourself.  What is
> the value of TERM when you log in with an empty .login and shell
> startup files?