shell character substitution

[Joseph R. Mann]

Some inexpensive terminals don't support the pipe and telde,
specifically a Commodore Vic.  In my quest for making UNIX
available to the masses, one user of this system is having
great difficulty with those characters.  

Does anyone know how to substitute a character 
(control-a, for example) for the pipe character, to the shell? 
Control-a is one of the unused function keys on the Vic.  
Thanks in advance.   Joe.