From:	CSBVAX::MRGATE!@KL.SRI.Com:bal%va.decnet@nrl.arpa@SMTP 21-JUL-1987 12:49
To:	EVERHART
Subj:	Re: VMS GNU Emacs

Received: from nrl.arpa by KL.SRI.COM with TCP; Mon 20 Jul 87 21:30:37-PDT
Date: 21 Jul 87 00:15:00 EST
From: "VA::BAL" <bal%va.decnet@nrl.arpa>
Subject:  Re: VMS GNU Emacs
To: "luken%lehiibm1.bitnet" <luken%lehiibm1.bitnet@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
cc: info-vax@kl.sri.com
Reply-To: "VA::BAL" <bal%va.decnet@nrl.arpa>

Reply-To: bal%va.decnet@nrl.arpa
Full-Name: Brian A. LaMacchia
Address: Code 4771, Naval Reserach Laboratory
Address: 4555 Overlook Ave. SW, Washington, DC  20375-5000
Phone: (202) 767-3066


>The first problem is that GNU EMACS doesn't even attempt to load the
>TERM/VT102.EL file when run, despite what the documentation says.  In
>fact, even if the terminal type is VT100, it doesn't load the same
>VT100.EL file.  According to the docs, the STARTUP.EL file should look
>for the appropriate terminal dependent file and load it, if it exists,
>from the TERM subdir of the LISP dir.  Nothing.

You're absolutely right.  The fragment of code that is supposed to load
the term file is:

    (and term-file-prefix (not noninteractive)
	 (load (if window-system
		   (concat term-file-prefix
			   (symbol-name window-system)
			   "-win")
		   (concat term-file-prefix
			   (substring (getenv "TERM") 0
				      (string-match "-" (getenv "TERM")))))
	       t t))

The "load" function searches for the proper terminal file in all of the
directories in the list "load-path".  By default, load-path contains
only the value "emacs_library:[lisp]"  Thus (assuming window-system is
nil), you get the above is equivalent to:

(load (concat term-file-prefix "vt102"))

By default (path.el) term-file-prefix is set to "term/".  Thus the above
sexp is equivalent to:

(load "term/vt102")

Now, emacs goes and looks for the file:

"emacs_library:[lisp]term/vt102.el"

and fails.  For some reason, emacs doesn't change [lisp]term to
[lisp.term].  Since the load function was given the optional third
argument, you don't see the failure message.

What can you do to work around this?  This simplest things to do is to
add the line:

(setq term-file-prefix "[.term]") 

to your site-init.el file (and rebuild emacs).  Or, if you don't want to
change the parameters for the site, you can add:

(setq term-file-prefix "[.term]")
(load ...)

to you own .emacs startup file.  This will make the change for you but
not for all emacs users.

Hope this helps.

				--Brian LaMacchia
				  bal%va.decnet@nrl.arpa (current)
				  balamac@athena.mit.edu
------