The original TERMinal CAPabilities database from BSD (I believe).

AT&T System V attempted to supersede it with terminfo. However, until ncurses came along, the open source movement viewed this with some distrust.

Termcap comprises a terminal capabilities database - being a monolithic text file with cryptic annotations for the capabilities - and a C library to enable application programs to determine a particular terminal's abilities.


See also terminfo, curses, ncurses, vi.