Bill Sommerfeld writes:

> >Number:         6536
> >Category:       kern
> >Synopsis:       wscons has no equivalent to PCVT_META_ESC
> 
> >Description:
> 	wscons appears to have no equivalent to pcvt's "PCVT_META_ESC"
> 	option; meta always sets the eighth bit of the character.
> 	maybe i'm confused about i18n issues, but this would appear to
> 	be problematic if you want a meta key and also want to be able
> 	to enter non-7bit-ascii characters via a "compose" type
> 	function.
> 
> 	I notice this most with zsh, which has an emacs mode but
> 	doesn't seem to play the bit-8-set == meta game..

Zsh is more happy with meta = bit 8 than meta = extra ESC...

What may be happening here is the tty is set to 7 bit characters (do a
stty -a and look for cs7 or cs8).

Otherwise try "bindkey -m", or "bindkey" and ensure that binding for
meta-key sequences (\M-something) exist.

It isn't awfully clear what to do with the meta key, but it really
seems like sending ESC-<character> is wrong, its almost always used as
a work around when there's a better solution.

That said, the "compose" key comment is very true, so maybe using bit
8 isn't really appropriate either.

Perhaps there is a terminal out there that sets a precident for
indicating the meta key was down that could be implemented?  (A late
model VT or something?)