[mod.computers.vax] History of the DECUS PTYDRIVER

KVC@engvax.UUCP (Kevin Carosso) (05/28/86)

> The history of the DECUS Pty driver should be corrected a bit. The
> Pty driver is from CMU and was written by Dale Moore. It was given
> away with the understanding that credit be given to Dale and CMU.
> Somewhere in the process this courtesy was dropped.

This is wrong.

The driver which to Eriks Rugelis is referring (and the only PTY driver I
know of to appear on the DECUS tapes) was originally written by Gary Grebus
(it's first incarnation on the SIG tapes).

I took Gary's original, converted it to VMS V4, and made other changes and
resubmitted to the Spring '85 (New Orleans) tape.  This driver is
distinguishable by the fact that it is called PTYDRIVER and consists of
only one template device, PTY0:.

The CMU driver is broken into two devices, called PYDRIVER and PTDRIVER,
or PYDRIVER and PZDRIVER (since DEC usurped the PT naming convention) and
a system using it will have both a PYA0: and a PTA0: (or PZA0:) template
device.

I have worked on both pseudo-terminal drivers, but have only ever put PTYDRIVER
on a DECUS tape.  There is absolutely no connection between PTYDRIVER and
the CMU driver -- neither Gary nor myself had a copy of the CMU driver at
the time we did PTYDRIVER.

The courtesy that was dropped was in not mentioning Gary as the original
author of PTYDRIVER.

	/Kevin Carosso               engvax!kvc @ csvax.caltech.edu
	 Hughes Aircraft Co.