Re: Emacs on AIX, can't find terminal init

[kgold@watson.ibm.com (kgold)]

In article <77fcc8c7.0307231455.1cb287c5@posting.google.com>,
 john.s.richardson@bankofamerica.com (John Richardson) writes:
> kgold@watson.ibm.com (kgold) wrote in message news:<bfmjn2$npm$1@news.btv.ibm.com>...
> > john.s.richardson@bankofamerica.com (John Richardson) writes:
> > > Sorry for the newbie question, but they just put emacs on our
> > > development AIX machine here and when I start it, emacs comes back
> > > with
> > > 
> > > emacs: Terminal type vt420 is not defined.
> > > 
> > > I see the file 
> > > 
> > > /opt/freeware/share/emacs/21.3/lisp/term/vt420.el
> > > 
> > > and have dug thru some of the doc, but am having trouble telling emacs
> > > to look for the init file in that location. I presume that's my
> > > problem.
> > 
> > FWIW, I use AIX and there is no vt420.el anywhere that I can see.
> > 
> > Are you directly connected (to a video card) or are you logging in
> > with a vt420 type terminal through a serial port?  Are running X
> > windows?
> > 
> > Assuming the normal direct connection and running X, I wonder why
> > vt420 is mentioned at all?  Perhaps there is some left over
> > customization in your .emacs or one of the startup files that should
> > be removed?
> > 
> > --
> 
> I'm telnetting into the box using Kea which is set to think I'm using
> a vt420. So, no x-windows. This is all brand-new on this machine. We
> got enough of a critical mass that the sysadmin put emacs on for us.
> Not sure where he got all the pieces since the story I heard was that
> the IBM distibution kit didn't have the non-x emacs binary (implying
> that other parts were missing as well).
> 
> I tried setting the load path in my '.emacs' file and starting it with
> the debugger, but all I got was the complaint about the terminal type.
> Korn shell is the defualt, fwiw.

It sounds like the problem is "before" emacs.  Shells typically have
an environment variable like 'term' or 'TERM' which tells applications
how to talk to the terminal.  When you telnet in, it's probably set to
vt420, and there's no entry for that terminal type.

Try typing set and/or setenv and look for the environment variable.

-- 
-- 
Ken Goldman   kgold@watson.ibm.com   914-784-7646