This is the GNU termcap library -- a library of C functions that
enable programs to send control strings to terminals in a way
independent of the terminal type.  The GNU termcap library does not
place an arbitrary limit on the size of termcap entries, unlike most
other termcap libraries.

Most of this package is also distributed with GNU Emacs, but it is
available in this separate distribution to make it easier to install
as -ltermcap.  However, use of termcap is discouraged.  Termcap is
being phased out in favor of the terminfo-based ncurses library, which
contains an emulation of the termcap library routines in addition to
an excellent curses implementation.  ncurses is available from the
usual GNU archive sites.

See the file INSTALL for compilation and installation instructions.
Additionally:

This package contains termcap.src, the latest official termcap data
file.  By default, it is not installed.  The current version contains
some entries that are more than 1023 bytes long, which is the largest
value that is safe to use with the many historical applications that
only allocate a 1024 byte termcap buffer (telnet, for example).  If
you make sure that all of your programs allocate buffers of at least
2500 bytes, or let the termcap library do it by passing a NULL
pointer, then it is safe to install the new termcap file, as described
below.

You can give configure two special options:
  --enable-install-termcap install the termcap data file
  --with-termcap=FILE     use data file FILE instead of /etc/termcap

Please report any bugs in this library to bug-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu.
You can check which version of the library you have by using the RCS
`ident' command on libtermcap.a.