How do *you* identify terminals?

[Randy King]

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How do *you* export TERM for termcap/terminfo?  Do you *ask* for it verbatim,
ala:  echo "Term? \c"; read TERM; export TERM...  Or do you do it in magic
ways?  I thought I had a magic way - I wrote this command years ago called tset
that is invoked like:  TERM=`/usr/lbin/tset`.  What it does is disable canonical
input, send out various X3.64 and private identify sequences then look at the
result.  If nothing comes back, or is not matched to the known sequences,
then TERM=dumb.  (Back in RT-11 days, I did this with an EMT 340).

This was fine until we got our 60-some Teletype 5420's here.  They all
respond just like the vt100, but the vt100 termcap isn't just right.  The
5420 termcap is great, but it doesn't work exactly right on the vt100.

It was suggested that one store terminal ID's in the answerback message on
each terminal, but that's cheating.  So how about it?  What else is being
done out there in this regard?
							Randy King
							AT&T/CP-MG
							ihnp4!mgweed!rjk