I have a client running an application compiled using MF cobol for Unix V3.2, running on a bare metal install of SCO Openserver 6.0.0
As the current hardware is now 8 years old, I have attempted to move the application to a Virtualbox on LinuxMint 19.3.
All is well, except for one not so minor detail, the F10 and up and down arrow keys do not work, all the other F keys work, as well as the left and right arrow keys.
I do not have the source code. The application does not appear to use a special termcap or terminfo, nor does it use an adisctrl file.
What is the hardware? What hardware is the keyboard attached to? The console, a PC terminal, or what?
I saw your post this yesterday and, not being an expert, thought I'd leave it for someone with more knowledge. However, since so far there are no replies, here's my 2 cents.
Problems with arrow keys in this situation are quite common. If the hardware is recent enough to have a "hardware virtualization" setting in the BIOS I've heard of setting to "enabled" can fix cursor key issues (allowing the host to pass these keystrokes to the quest).
I've also heard that swapping a PS/2 keyboard for a USB keyboard can sometimes fix arrow key issues.
The F10 issue is a feature of virtualbox and usually needs a different keystroke such as Fn+F10, Ctrl+F10, or such. I guess no doubt you know this and have tried it already. However, I appreciate that the users have to get used to it which isn't convenient.
I have given up. The problem occurs at the console, also with telnet, and is even worse with ssh.
I have installed another application written in MF cobol for which I have the source code, but a later version (4.1) that uses a program called adis to manage the input and output of data to and from the screen section of a cobol program, such as whether a field is right or left justified, has leading zeros, etc. This newer application does not exhibit the problem.
My assumption now is that this is a timing issue and that the overhead of the virtual system causes the application to misinterpret function keys.
I have been through a similar process year ago (19) migrating from a mainframe to UNIX...
and again from the unix to anything I wished unix or linux ( I was asked to remove rom HP-UX PA-RISC...) I tried Aix, Solaris, but I had to save on license costs that meant removing MF-Cobol and I found an option using RH and open-Cobol... the pain as you noticed comes from the type of terminal it was compiled for and having to find a terminal with same behaviour... Not impossible but months of work, trying and testing...
@vbe, kind of off topic, but I tried converting an application from MF to Opencobol (now GNUCobol) in 2012, and while everything worked ok, the MF version allowed the user to press 'enter' at the end of each field and did not submit the screen until the last field was entered.
The opencobol required that the user use the tab key to navigate between fields and submitted the screen as soon as the enter key was used. I never implemented the change because most of the users had 20 years with the old system, and I didn't think they would ever get used to using the tab key instead of the enter key.
Did you run into this problem, and if so did you find a fix?
If there were issues of the sort, it would have been Inglenet company in Canada that would have dealt with since they were in charge of the terminal and the transaction monitor emulation