Greetings!

I'm having a very annoying problem with xterm. But first, a little
background.

I do a lot of work with DEC VMS machines, so when I telnet into them, I
want the backspace key to act as delete. However, if I use xmodmap to
permanently map it that way, this screws up lots of local X apps. Firefox,
for example, deletes to the right instead of the left, which is VERY
annoying. Consequently, I decided to use *deleteIsDEL in my .Xdefaults
instead.

The problem with this is that xterm keeps switching randomly between
using ^H and DEL for the backspace key. After using DEL for a while,
it'll spontaneously switch to using ^H for a while. And then, just when
I've been perfectly happy with "stty erase ^H", it'll suddenly switch
back and I'll have to "stty erase ^?" to be happy again.

I don't know exactly what causes it, but it seems to be related to
either using the scroll bar and/or running an application that puts the
terminal in raw mode.

Questions:

- Does anyone know what causes xterm to change its mind about the
   backspace key and what I can do about it?

- Failing that, does anyone know how to reliably convince xterm and
   telnet sessions through it that the backspace key is delete WITHOUT
   screwing up every other X app's view of the keyboard?

I'm using NETBSD 1.6.2_STABLE.
-- 
Roger Ivie
rivie@ridgenet.net
http://anachronda.webhop.org/
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