tty

[Jonathan I. Kamens]

In article <689 at uncle.UUCP>, donlash at uncle.UUCP (Donald Lashomb) writes:
> In simple terms: /dev/tty is not connected to any single *real* tty, it
> is a special program that connects to ->your<- terminal, whatever it may be.
> Things like /dev/tty01..02..n are connected to *real* ttys.

Two points:

1. /dev/tty is not a "special program", it is a "special device".  A minor but
   significant difference.

2. Not all numbered tty's are connected to "*real* ttys"; I'm not even
sure what
   you mean by a "real" tty, so I'm assuming that by "real" you mean
"physical".
   However, pseudo-ttys (ptys) don't fall into that category, and yet a program
   running on a pty which opens /dev/tty *will* get something useful.

Jonathan Kamens			              USnail:
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