Recent ports merges or the recent vi update (not sure which) turned on screen switching by default. this is where you edit a file with vi (or other editors) and when you quit the xterm's contents goes back to what it was before the vi was run.
If you don't like this operation (and frankly, I really really dislike it myself), the simple solution is to add an X resource for xterm. Create a .Xresources file with this in it: xterm*titeInhibit: true And install it with xrdb in your .xinitrc: xrdb -merge .Xresources I'm not sure about other X terminal apps but I presume they have a similar feature. -Matt
