VT100s and Emaxes

[DBrown at HI-MULTICS.ARPA]

  The degree of desirability of ANSI terminals (including the
VT100/101/180) varies directly with the language your emacs is written
in.
  TECO and (compiled) lisp seem to make it easy to design in support for
different types of terminals, C and mocklisp make it hard.
   Why?  Because ANSI terminals are *different* from the usual run of
the mill ADM-3a, and you have to have one for a while to appreciate how
they intended the more difficult things to be done.
  I suspect later versions of termcap/curses/terminfo handle ANSI
terminals better than the first ones...
  --dave