major & minor devices in English

[cdl at mplvax.UUCP]

Roughly speaking, a major device is the software's name for what a hardware
person would call a controller, while a minor device is the software name
for one of the (perhaps many) peripheral devices which are run by that
controller.

Thus, major devices include things like 'hp', 'up', 'rk', 'rp' disk controllers,each of which might control several disk drives; 'hs', 'tm', 'ts' tape
controllers with associated tape drives; 'dz', 'dh' terminal controllers
with associated communication lines.

Some major devices tend to be singular in their attached minor device, e.g.
'lp', 'va', 'vp' printers.

Strictly speaking, a major device refers to all the stuff that can be run
by a single piece of software (the device driver), but the mapping to
real hardware is the way to think about it. 

		Carl Lowenstein		{ucbvax,philabs}!sdcsvax!mplvax!cdl
		Marine Physical Lab., U. C. San Diego