VT100 compatibility on a Silicon Graphics IRIS

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <1990Dec13.035401.19365 at athena.mit.edu> ramon at skye.mit.edu (Ramon F Herrera) writes:
>How can I make the delete key work properly if I login from
>a DEC (Ultrix/VMS/VT100 terminal) device into a Silicon
>Graphics computer?  The DELete key doesn't work, so I have
>to use ^H instead.  I have tried:
>% set term = vt100 (before login)
>% setenv TERM vt100 (before login)
>% stty erase DEL (after login)
>but they don't do the trick.  Is the terminfo file distributed
>with the SG machines erroneous??  Should I just add some 'stty'
>statement to my 'dot' files, or should the terminfo file be
>modified??

Something you (and all UNIX users) need to clearly understand is
that terminfo (or temcap) is NOT USED for "plain vanilla" applications,
usually including the shell (command-line interpreter).  Terminfo
describes characteristics of particular terminal types, for programs
that do terminal-dependent stuff like direct cursor addressing.
Note that what key you CHOOSE to mean "erase preceding character"
while typing at "plain vanilla" applications has NOTHING to do with
the characteristics of your terminal; it is a user preference option.
Thus, you need to tell the UNIX terminal handler (which is the gnome
that handles each character that you type) what your intentions are,
if the default behavior is not what you want.  That is what the "stty"
command does.  "stty erase '^?'" is the usual way to specify use of
DEL for an erase character.  I personally recommend backspace..