emacs config

[John Williams]

Dear List,  thanks in advance for your advice. I haven't touched Unix for 15 years but remember loving emacs. Now I've been given a SuSE machine to get a lot programming done by the end of the month, and I'm having problems getting emacs to work.  Here's the situation:
The SuSE machine is only accessible via SSH from a Windows (ms-dog) command prompt.
The SuSE command line works find across SSH.  I invoked emacs across SSH, went through the tutorial, and a few problems arose:  The backspace key maps to C-h.  The delete key maps to ~.  The function keys map to letters or numbers and ~.  This is as far as I got - I don't know what else may or may not work.  I'm under the gun to produce so thanks again for your advice.  I remember emacs being very cool, and am excited at the prospect of getting it working.