To use the tools of ADABAS, the user needs some special keys in addition to the standard alphanumeric keys. These keys are the function keys 
, 
, ... up to
and 
; if the terminal description does not contain these keys, the tools will not start but terminate voluntarily with an error message.
For comfortable operation, the tools support additional function keys; the most important are: 
, 
, 
, 
, 
,
.
As the addition of these keys to terminal descriptions might collide with the requirements of other programs, ADABAS supports a concept of terminal descriptions adequate for the ADABAS tools:
If the environment of a running ADABAS tool contains a variable "dbterm" its value replaces that of "term" for the terminal type identification. The environment variable "dbterm" overrides the environment variable "term".
If a user sets "dbterm" in his ".profile" file, he can use the original terminal description for the normal editor and an enhanced description for the ADABAS tools without any further intervention. This enhanced description can use the same type name because the existence of "dbterm" implicitly sets the environment variable "terminfo" to "$dbroot/terminfo" for the ADABAS tools.
Whenever "terminal type" is used in the following description or in the manuals of the ADABAS tools, it means the value of the "dbterm" environment variable or, if that is not set, the value of the "term" environment variable.
The distribution medium contains descriptions for frequently used terminal types: for the Digital Equipment terminals VT 100 ("vt100") and VT 200 ("vt220"). The keyboard layouts for the "vt100", "vt200", and other terminals are provided in the ADABAS 'User Manual for UNIX'.