> 
>   W> in netbsd there are termcap and curses library. both
>    > uses the same database (unlike linux ncurses and
>    > termcap)
> 
> That's interesting, I wonder why linux doesn't share the
> same database :-/
because linux is random mix of different code from different people.
many new linux distributions has only ncurses and termcap is emulated
through ncurses.
> 
>   AB> My needs are pretty minimal, clearing the screen,
>     > positioning the cursor and so on.
> 
>   W> termcap
> 
> Thanks, I'll look into that.  I'll also check out curses to
> see what it has to offer.

curses is big library which has functions to put text, change colors, do
keyboard works etc.etc.

termcap is just a SMALL library to get part you want from termcap.db
as you only need to do your simple program terminal-code independent it
should be good.