Solution:
There are two purposes to setting the Terminal Type:
If you need to use the console graphic screens (screen mode for administration, menuing mode for sessions on the Jetstream, or the Easy Port menu for the CS9000) the server must be able to emulate the terminal type that the client is emulating in order to correctly display the data and keystrokes.
The server can emulate VT100, ANSI, and WYSE60 terminals and can also have new definitions uploaded into one of three memory spaces (see manual for details on upload terminal definitions).
Note that most Telnet/SSH clients can emulate one of the default terminal emulations of the Perle server, so in most cases uploading new terminal definitions are not necessary.
If a line is configured for a direct or silent Telnet service and you have configured sessions on the Perle Jetstream models with "menuing" then the Jetstream must be able to support the terminal emulation of the dumb terminal.
If menuing is not required then the server does not necessarily need to emulate the terminal type as the dumb terminal may not need to utilize the screen mode on the Perle server.
In this case it is the host that is being telneted to requires to know what to set for the TERM variable.
The Term Type defined on the line will be passed to the telnet host to be used for the TERM variable.
If the dumb terminal is not using VT100, ANSI, or WYSE60 then you can define the Term Type using the 'set telnet' CLI command.
set telnet line termtype
example to set the TERM variable to vt220
JS8500# set telnet line 1 termtype vt220
then save and kill the line.
The Term Type defined by the 'set telnet' command will over-ride the Term Type defined on the line configuration and this will be passed to the Telnet Server host as the TERM value.