Inspecting Flag(FTALKING) to activate curses in the spot chosen by the previous commit seems to fail in some circumstances because of order of operations in ksh startup. So move the test and curses initialization immediately before the tputs() calls. discussion with tb

bin/ksh/emacs.c

···
-/*	$OpenBSD: emacs.c,v 1.90 2023/06/21 22:22:08 millert Exp $	*/
+/*	$OpenBSD: emacs.c,v 1.91 2026/03/05 05:38:58 deraadt Exp $	*/
 
 /*
  *  Emacs-like command line editing and history
···
 	if (limit == -2) {
 		int cleared = 0;
 #ifndef SMALL
+		if (cur_term == NULL && Flag(FTALKING))
+			initcurses();
 		if (cur_term != NULL && clear_screen != NULL) {
 			if (tputs(clear_screen, 1, x_putc) != ERR)
 				cleared = 1;

bin/ksh/sh.h

···
-/*	$OpenBSD: sh.h,v 1.77 2023/06/21 22:22:08 millert Exp $	*/
+/*	$OpenBSD: sh.h,v 1.78 2026/03/05 05:38:58 deraadt Exp $	*/
 
 /*
  * Public Domain Bourne/Korn shell
···
 int	array_ref_len(const char *);
 char *	arrayname(const char *);
 void    set_array(const char *, int, char **);
+void	initcurses(void);
 /* vi.c: see edit.h */

bin/ksh/var.c

···
-/*	$OpenBSD: var.c,v 1.74 2026/03/04 03:54:25 deraadt Exp $	*/
+/*	$OpenBSD: var.c,v 1.75 2026/03/05 05:38:58 deraadt Exp $	*/
 
 #include <sys/stat.h>
 #include <sys/time.h>
···
 		{ "SECONDS",		V_SECONDS },
 		{ "TMOUT",		V_TMOUT },
 		{ "LINENO",		V_LINENO },
-		{ "TERM",		V_TERM },
 		{ NULL,	0 }
 	};
 	int i;
···
 		user_lineno = (unsigned int) intval(vp) - current_lineno - 1;
 		vp->flag |= SPECIAL;
 		break;
-	case V_TERM:
-#ifndef SMALL
-		if (Flag(FTALKING)) {
-			int ret;
-
-			vp->flag &= ~SPECIAL;
-			if (setupterm(str_val(vp), shl_out->fd, &ret) == ERR)
-				del_curterm(cur_term);
-			vp->flag |= SPECIAL;
-		}
-#endif
-		break;
 	}
 }
 
···
 		setstr(vq, vals[i], KSH_RETURN_ERROR);
 	}
 }
+
+void
+initcurses(void)
+{
+	struct tbl *vp = global("TERM");
+	int ret;
+
+	if (vp) {
+		if (setupterm(str_val(vp),
+		    shl_out->fd, &ret) == ERR)
+			del_curterm(cur_term);
+	}
+}

bin/ksh/vi.c

···
-/*	$OpenBSD: vi.c,v 1.67 2025/07/20 21:24:07 schwarze Exp $	*/
+/*	$OpenBSD: vi.c,v 1.68 2026/03/05 05:38:58 deraadt Exp $	*/
 
 /*
  *	vi command editing
···
 	int neednl = 1;
 
 #ifndef SMALL
+	if (cur_term == NULL && Flag(FTALKING))
+		initcurses();
 	if (cur_term != NULL && clear_screen != NULL) {
 		if (tputs(clear_screen, 1, x_putc) != ERR)
 			neednl = 0;