BCE: background color erase

[frank]

Ubuntu 8.10, text console, no terminal window involved.

Text mode applications fail with BCE (background color erase). An
editor with blue background will have blue background on text and
black background on empty space. A line of text reaching to the
middle of window will be blue on the left side and black on the right
side.

That happens with or without framebuffer. It does NOT happen with
Ubuntu 7.10 on the same machine.

Is there a workaround?

-- frank