Dennis Ritchie's Newer-than-new Tty Driver? (& 4.2 on 68k's)

[Donn Seeley]

I have noticed that one of the parts of 4BSD that gets a lot of flak
from System V advocates is the tty driver.  It certainly has
interesting problems, and it is now more complicated than before with
the addition of pseudo-tty's.  I seem to remember that none other than
Dennis Ritchie presented a paper at the Santa Monica Usenix describing
a new way of handling tty communications, and much more.  It's now
approaching two years since I first heard about this and I still
haven't seen it in any system that I've had contact with, to my
knowledge.  What happened to this proposal? Is it going to be in 4.3
BSD?  System 6?  Version 8?  Was a 4.2 BSD version nixed by AT&T lawyers
as was Mark Horton's terminfo package?

Displaying my ignorance in public again,

Donn Seeley    UCSD Chemistry Dept. RRCF    ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdchema!donn
32 52' 30"N 117 14' 25"W  (619) 452-4016    sdcsvax!sdchema!donn at noscvax

[PS Speaking of rumors, I bet some people are still wondering about
that no-extra-license-required 4.2 port to the Motorola 68K that I
discussed a few months ago.  Well, our group didn't receive funding
-- NIH has decided not to decide on our grant until at least March
1984 (that's 6 months!).  We have in the meantime sought alternate
sources of funding and possible vendor support, and both of these look
like they may materialize soon.  This delay has also caused management
to look at alternatives to the original proposal, including using
different CPUs like the NS16032 or the MicroVax.  I will get around to
a longer article on this in a week or two.  I will include information
I have received on SUN source licensing, and anyone else who has
information they would like me to include (hey, a newsletter!) can send
me mail at one of the above addresses.  Thanks for being patient...]