59.3 Garbage on the Screen
If the text on a text terminal looks wrong, the first thing to do is
see whether it is wrong in the buffer. Type C-l to redisplay
the entire screen. If the screen appears correct after this, the
problem was entirely in the previous screen update. (Otherwise, see
the following section.)
Display updating problems often result from an incorrect termcap entry
for the terminal you are using. The file etc/TERMS in the Emacs
distribution gives the fixes for known problems of this sort.
INSTALL contains general advice for these problems in one of its
sections. Very likely there is simply insufficient padding for certain
display operations. To investigate the possibility that you have this sort
of problem, try Emacs on another terminal made by a different manufacturer.
If problems happen frequently on one kind of terminal but not another kind,
it is likely to be a bad termcap entry, though it could also be due to a
bug in Emacs that appears for terminals that have or that lack specific
features.
