unable to switch to plain text mode

[jrh29]

I'm writing a shell that uses curses, but programs like ps that only use
printf() don't work properly, they display stair-stepping text.  I've
tried using endwin(); refresh(), but that didn't work right, it quit
completely, then reset the whole window....I tried nl() and nonl(), but
those didn't work either.  How can I do this?

gandalf