Setting escapetime>1, e.g., 5, had no effect on the case flipping.

I also noticed that in command mode, just moving a cursor around
and pressing escape at any cursor position flipped the case on the
character wherever the cursor was placed.

Baaaaad karma....(:+\\.....

For now, the only fix seems to edit in vi outside X on this alpha.

Also, the same thing happened using vim.

It does not happen on any of my Sun boxes.  Whatever is
doing it may be alpha specific or dec specific.

Vague memory seems to suggest that I saw this happen one
time before, but I am unable to recall on what, exactly.  Does this
happen on a pmax box?

Oh, well, that is all I can ferret out, for now....

Thanks

Bob Keys