Progress...

* LINES and COLUMNS work. It even properly catches when I resize an
xterm or urxvt window.

* vim next-line-tabbing works

* problems with positioning at previous position. The command...
vim .bashrc
outputs...

--- Autocommands ---
filetypedetect  BufRead
*if !did_filetype() && expand("<amatch>") !~ g:ft_ignore_pat | runtime! scripts.vim | endif
*if !did_filetype() && expand("<amatch>") !~ g:ft_ignore_pat    && (getline(1) =~ '^#' || getline(2) =~ '^#' || getline(3) =~ '^#'^I|| getline(4) =~ '^#' || getline(5) =~ '^#') |   setf FALLBACK conf | endif
Error detected while processing /home/waltdnes/.vimrc:
line   16:
E492: Not an editor command: <a0> \ if line("'\"") >= 1 && line("'\"") <= line("$") && &ft !~# 'commit'
line   17:
E492: Not an editor command: <a0> \ |<a0><a0> exe "normal! g`\""
Press ENTER or type command to continue

My .vimrc is...

syntax enable
set nohlsearch
set ruler
set rulerformat=%35(%<%F\ %h\ %m\ %r\ %l,\ %c\ %P%)
set background=dark
set expandtab
set softtabstop=2
set tabstop=2
set shiftwidth=2
filetype indent on
" When editing a file, always jump to the last known cursor position.
" Don't do it when the position is invalid, when inside an event handler
" (happens when dropping a file on gvim) and for a commit message (it's
" likely a different one than last time).
autocmd BufReadPost *
  \ if line("'\"") >= 1 && line("'\"") <= line("$") && &ft !~# 'commit'
  \ |   exe "normal! g`\""

--
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@???>
There are 2 types of people in this world
1) Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data