Problems calling S-Plus help

[Stephen Eglen]

 > change that option inside the Splus process with the command 
 > 
 > >options(help.pager="gnuclient")
 > 
 > and the to call an help, as for example
 > 
 > >?princomp
 > 
 > The result I have got is a frame with a description of the function, but in 
 > html code.
 > To try to start the server manually I have then launched emacs at the same 
 > time in which xemacs was running, and then I have typed 
 > 
 > M-x server-start 
 > 
 > inside emacs. 

What version of XEmacs are you running?  I have XEmacs 21.1.14 here,
where the relevant emacs command is "M-x gnuserv-start" rather than 
"M-x server-start" ... is server-start defined in recent XEmacs
versions?