As far as I know, the wscons doesn't have ``fluffy'' things in it like
scrollback.  There are three options that I can think of (in my personal
order of preference):

 * Set up X and use something like xterm, which provides a scrollback.

 * Use window(1), which ships with NetBSD.  There are some technical
   drawbacks: For applications run WITHIN window(1), window(1) provides
   a very weird (non-VT100-like) virtual terminal.  The window(1)
   requires a rather strange termcap entry, which it embeds in an
   environment variable.  The upshot is that most things work nicely,
   but ssh doesn't forward enough information when run under window(1).
   (ssh forwards the _name_ of the terminal, and trusts that the remote
   site has an appropriate termcap entry.  The chances are very poor that
   the remote site has the correct termcap entry for window(1)---even
   NetBSD doesn't have one---since window(1) normally provides the
   entry via the environment.)

   On the plus side, you get most of the features that you would get
   with an X-based window: Scrolling, cut'n'paste, resizing, etc.
   As I recall, you can even run one window(1) inside of another---but
   I suspect that scrolling and cut'n'paste could become confusing if you
   made a habit of doing that.

 * The GNU(?) screen program is available in pkgsrc.  It is very similar
   to window(1).  For reasons I no longer recall, I decided that window(1)
   was preferable to screen.  Offhand, I mostly remember advantages to
   screen: screen provides a VT100-like virtual console so it is less
   trouble with ssh.  Shell sessions started under one screen can later be
   appropriated by another (useful if you lose, or break, a connection
   and later want to reestablish it).  One minor limitation (because of
   the way that it approrpriates shell sessions, maybe): I don't think
   that you can nest screen invocations.


For your other questions, I don't have much real help to offer, I'm
afraid.  Perhaps someone will cover them.  (^&

Good luck, and welcome aboard.


  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  --rkr@rkr.kcnet.com