>so, i telnet in to the box.  run EDIT, and it just doesn't work well when i
>scroll off the bottom of the page.  doesn't move what's already there, just
>changes the last line (but not overwriting stuff completley, i'm sure
you've
>all seen it before, it's pretty common with misconfigured terminal types)


After you have telneted to the box try:

$ SET TERMINAL/INQUIRE/LINE/INSERT /WIDTH=80 /PAGE=24

(if you don't use 24 lines then obviously
use whatever number of lines you really have on
your terminal).

The /INQUIRE portion makes OpenVMS attempt to identify
your terminal by sending escape sequences to it. If you
type anything during this period, the process starts all
over again (and you lose your input). So wait until
the $ prompt comes back.

The /LINE part puts you into line editing mode
(up arrow to go further back into your command history,
left and right to move along the line etc.)

The /INSERT part puts the line editing into
insert mode rather than overstrike mode.

/WIDTH is the width of your terminal in columns -
only 80 and 132 are likely to work well.

/PAGE is the terminal page length (i.e. the number
of usable rows displayed).

If you want to look at your terminal's settings use:

$ SHOW TERMINAL

$ HELP SET TERMINAL will give you all this and more.

Finally, EDIT is probably invoking EDT, which
may not cope that well with anything other
than 80x24 and 80x132. I don't think it minds
anything bigger than 80x24 (say 80x36) but it
won't use it and it may leave the terminal
set for an 80x24 region afterwards (although the
OS will still believe that your terminal
is 80x36 or whatever ... $ TYPE/PAGE NL: 
will usually clear things up nicely).

Antonio