martin (05/17/82)
Back in the (good) old days of 6th Edition, the console device was known as /dev/tty8. Does anyone know the reason for this seemingly strange choice of names? Is it just something for which there is no logical explanation? I was reminded of it when told about a piece of code which runs on a more recent version of the system, but which *still* has a reference to tty8! Martin Harriss ....!pyuxjj!martin
geoff (05/19/82)
According to the Sixth Edition of the UNIX Programmer's Manual, the DC-11's were /dev/tty[0-7a-d], the DH-11's were /dev/tty[f-u], and the KL-11 (now DL-11) was /dev/tty8. I assume that the names were just assigned arbitrarily and thus appeared as above in the distributed v6 system. On the other hand, it could be another dsw. Geoff Collyer, U. of Toronto Computing Services
leichter (05/19/82)
The ordering that Geoff Collyer reports - DC-11's as tty0-7,a-d etc. - makes it look like someone just numbered them by the order of the control- lers in the backplane on some machine or other, and the names stuck... Just a guess... -- Jerry