Dumn terminal screenlength problem?

[Robert K. Scott]

We have a curious problem with TELNET access to a SUN 3/280 running Sun/OS
3.2.  Most users access this server from their diskless 3/50 nodes via rsh
when needed, but some users access this server from dumn terminals or PC's
emulating dumn terminals, and it is from this user community that the
problem arises.

Access for VT100 or H19 style terminal emulation on PCs is through a
serial connection from the PC to a Bridge (brand) Gateway server, which
creates a TELNET session on the SUN.  The problem for these users is
strange: sometimes their session thinks that they have more than 24 lines
per screen, almost as if it thinks that they have a large Suntools window.
When this happens, working in VI becomes impossible, since the top of the
data scrolls off the screen, even if the 'window' and 'scroll' Vi
parameters are set to the correct numbers explicitly.

This seems to manifest itself quite unpredictably, and just as
unpredictably fixes itself.  My hunch is that somehow the "session memory"
(or something like that if it exists) thinks that the person had a larger
window of some kind.  Although tests seem to have disproved the theory
that the culprit stems from running a console Suntools environment with
large windows, it still seems highly suspect.

If anyone has any ideas how to solve this one, or even any clues, we would
be most appreciative for their submission.

	Robert K. Scott
	zeke at sunfun.eta.com

Robert K. "Zeke" Scott        internet: zeke at sunfun.eta.com
voice: (612) 642-3493         uucp: {amdahl,rutgers}!bungia!eta!sunfun!zeke
snail: ETA Systems, Inc. ETC03J, 1450 Energy Park Drive, St. Paul, MN  55108