Need help with BellTech SysV/386 VGA colour console

[Chris Robertson]

I have just bought a VGA monitor for my Brand X 386 running Bell
Technologies' System V/386, Release 3.2.2.  I would like to have, for
my normal working shell, the entire console screen in inverse video
(i.e., black letters on white background).  I have TERM set to AT386.

Now, I can get inverse video (or more exotic things, like puce on
chartreuse ;-) just fine for *individual characters*, but nothing
seems to affect the whole screen.  The result is quite unreadable --
jagged lines of inverse video text on a black background.  I have
read and read the manuals, mucked around with setting "bce" in
the terminfo entry and other such things, tried to get the sample
curses "colours" program working, but just can't seem to make it go.

Any help would be appreciated -- I recall seeing this question zip
by a few weeks ago, but we expire news quickly and don't archive.
(BTW, using "tput set[bf]" has the same effect as using the escape
codes directly -- the don't affect the whole screen.)  It's *soooo*
frustrating to have this pretty new monitor and be stuck with boring
old white on black...
-- 
mallow(3) - allocate discontinuous memory |    Chris Robertson
            and fill with white space     |  chris at mcc.pyrsyd.oz