terminfo and curses

[Stuart D. Gathman]

We have been using Berkely curses and termcap on an otherwise SysV 6350
from Motorola.  We now have to work with a SysV 8000 which has the
"new and improved" curses and terminfo from AT&T.  

We have gotten used to having to "compile" the terminal types.
We realize why the capability names are fixed (standardization).

BUT,

	A 30K curses program on the 6350 is 60K on the 8000.

	A non-curses program on the 8000 is typically 25%
	smaller than the identical C code on the 6350
	because of optimization.

	We cannot use MINI_CURSES because it doesn't support
	getxy() and inch().  We don't need attributes, but
	if I can't read the screen, I have to keep my own copy! :-(

I thought the new curses was supposed to "nifty", "small" and "fast"?

"nifty" is a matter of taste.

"small" is a lie.

"fast"?  It might possibly use less CPU, but it takes twice as long
to load the programs!

BTW,

	We also ran curses/terminfo on a Motorola 290 with the
	same results.

Is this true for curses/terminfo everywhere else?
-- 
Stuart D. Gathman	<..!seismo!{vrdxhq|dgis}!BMS-AT!stuart>