Emacs 21 and M-x term

[Mark Plaksin <happy@usg.edu>]

Is there a version of Emacs 21 in which M-x term does the right thing most of
the time?

I've tried many versions including 21.3.50.2 from CVS and they all have
wacky problems.  For example, in 21.3.50.2 it won't use more than half of
the window and ls output is not properly aligned.  It behaves this way
with TERM set to both eterm and vt100.  I've tried starting emacs with -q
and removing my shell's dot files just to make sure I'm not causing the
problem.

Is M-x term in Emacs 21 working well for folks?  If so, what is your
emacs-version and OS?

Currently I use Emacs 20 and M-x term to log into lots of remote machines
via ssh.  I often need to run terminal-based programs like less and vi on
the remote machine.  I'm used to minor terminal emulation problems but most
of them can be fixed by hitting C-l or with small changes to term.el.  The
M-x term problems with Emacs 21 are much worse.  Am I just missing
something?

I've looked at M-x shell and M-x eshell but neither does what I want--I
really love M-x term :)

A side note: The remote machines I connect to run several different OSes.
Almost every time there is a new version of an OS (e.g., HP-UX 11.11 comes
out) there are new terminal emulation problems with M-x term in Emacs 20.
The problems can usually be demonstrated by hitting paging down with C-d
inside of vi.  After that some lines of the file are on the wrong line of
the terminal.  C-l usually gets things displayed correctly.

Is there a good reason for these problems?  I don't fully understand
terminal emulation but I'd have guessed that once vt100 worked it should
work forever.  term.el can be changed to resolve the problems, of course,
but it seems like that shoudn't be required.

Thanks for any help!