Improved Unix terminal emulation from MSDOS

[Daniel G. Simmons]

I am trying to find recommendations on how to improve my interface with
a BSD type unix system (a network of Suns at Cornell University CS dept.)
from my DOS system at home.  I access over a modem, and I am currently using
Telix and telling the Unix system that I have a vt100 terminal.

Sometime in the past I did play around with termcaps, etc.  But, it was on
a different system a while ago.  I would like to create my own termcap or
whatever is necessary to give some "conveniences":
	- use of arrow keys--on the sun consoles (of course) I can use the
	  arrow keys to move around in vi, nn, and other programs which 
	  otherwise have a multitude of different keys for performing
	  the same basic functions.  It seems that there must be some termcap
	  entry that specifies what code is coming from my end down the line
	  to unix that gets interpreted appropriately.  Given that I know what
	  that code is or how to change it, I can make my end send whatever
	  byte or series of bytes necessary.
	- Biff.  It seems that there should be some way to get the system to
	  shoot a byte or two that are not normally used for standard stuff
	  (I don't know like ascii code 01 or 07 for BELL or something) and
	  then I could tell my term program to beep me or something if that
	  ever happens.  Then, I could be notified of incoming mail, etc. at
	  home just like I am at school when running Xwindows...
	- Colors, etc.  Maybe my end just doesn't emulate vt-100 properly (no,
	  make that almost certainly), but whatever the reason, I have a lot
	  of difficulties with stuff like BOLD strings in the man pages on my
	  system etc.  For some reason, those strings display blue on black on
	  my monitor with everything else coming up white on black.  It's
	  really hard to read, and although I could probably change things
	  around from this end, I don't even know what control code is causing
	  that change...

So, the point of all this is that I would appreciate suggestions for these
specific things, or if that's not possible at least some hints on where to go
find documentation which is fairly explanatory about termcaps, etc.  or 
vt-100 emulation codes, and other related stuff.

If this kind of thing is a FAQ I apologize, and would appreciate it if someone
would clue me in on how to find any posted or ftp-able lists of FAQs and 
answers.  (Come to think of it, if there is such a thing I would be interested
in how to get ahold of it even if this particular question is answered on the
list...)

Thanks so much,


+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| Daniel G. Simmons  			dsimmons at cs.cornell.edu |
+---------------------------------------------------------------|
| Grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God	|
| stands forever.						|
|				-- Isaiah 40:8			|
| Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and corageous!  Do	|
| not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with	|
| you wherever you go.						|
|				-- Joshua 1:9			|
| "Stupidity has a habit of getting its way."			| 
|				-- The Day After		|
| "I don't know what world war III will be fought with, but	|
|  world war IV will be fought with sticks and stones."		|
|				-- Albert Einstein		|
+---------------------------------------------------------------+