Jo Even Skarstein, 02.01.2013 21:13:56:
I guess it's not the terminal that's the problem here, but the programs that outputs text with missing CR's to a VT52 terminal.
The main unsolved problem is that the program has to be owner of the tty. This is not the case when a background-program outputs text to stdout/stderr. You'll always get stairs unless the program explicitly prints \r\n, no matter how the crlf-mode is set. But it is not really an option to use \r\n anywhere in the code.
Run for example ps & to see.
I believe the described behaviour is correct, atleast for the BIOS console (don't know how the behaviour of LF and CR is defined in TW52). With VT52, LF moves the cursor to the next line. CR moves the cursor to the first column.
Do you know any real-life example where one would explicitly want just \n (i.e. stairs)?
-- Helmut Karlowski