So with fresh eyes after some sleep. I think what is happening is, in telnet or within the 'node' application wrapper as an alternate way to run it, I think the /n is being stripped or not sent upon <enter key> of the input, so a second <enter> is registering the input finally

still no luck with various TERM types though

Is there a way to push a /n back through the interface? Sort of pre-load <STDIN> with a /n ?