flaw in VT100 terminal emulator

[Barry Margolin <barmar@THINK.COM>]

    Date: Sat, 10 Jun 89 15:36:35 EDT
    From: sbrunnoc@hawk.ulowell.edu (Sean Brunnock)

      I am using the terminal program on a serial line connected to a 
    Decserver 100. 

      Things are fine until I try to use GNU emacs. New characters do
    not overwrite old characters thus making it very difficult to edit a 
    file. I must use ^L to rewrite the screen repeatedly.

There are several ways to solve this.

The manual way: Specify ":Overstrike No" after the host name in response
to the "Connect:" prompt.

The simplest way: Set TELNET:*NVT-OVERSTRIKE-DEFAULT* to NIL.

The correct way: Make sure the namespace entry for the host specifies a
system type that is in the list
TELNET:*SYSTEM-TYPES-THAT-REFUSE-OVERSTRIKING*.  Or add the host's
system type to that list (and report the omission to Symbolics, so that
they can update it in the next version).

I think it's about time Symbolics inverted the overstriking default in
that program.  Instead of having to list all the system types that don't
like overstriking, there should be a list of the ones that DO, since
they are fewer and less likely to change over time.

                                                barmar