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From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Large machines and tty naming conventions.
Message-ID: <7757@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Jul-87 16:45:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: mimsy.7757
Posted: Wed Jul 29 16:45:12 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 31-Jul-87 06:01:15 EDT
References: <8550@brl-adm.ARPA>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 34

In article <8550@brl-adm.ARPA> jason@violet.Berkeley.EDU (Jason
Venner) writes:
>As we get larger and larger machines, the naming conventions for tty's
>and ptys are getting pushed beyond their design specs. ...

>At this point, every program that grabs a pty, has a pty grabbing
>routine hard coded in, they usually stop after q, or r.  If you are a
>binary only site (or run ultrix) you're %^&*ed.

An amusing thing about these programs is that most *also* have a
stat() call so as to stop as soon as there are no more ptys.  Hence
the hardcoded stop point is entirely unnecessary.

>It is time to rethink the naming conventions for devices.

(`Rethink' is a horrible word.  But I use it at times too....)

>Changing the declaration of dev_t to an unsigned long from a short,

This is quite obviously planned.  I cannot say when CSRG will in fact
do it, but all the hooks are there.

>making directorys in /dev and putting files in there would solve
>several problems:

We already have /dev/fd/ here, and I plan to create /dev/disk/ and
/dev/tape/ (but it never seems urgent).  /dev/tty/ is more troublesome
(too many programs `know' about tty names).  Even so, finding a
free pair of ptys is too hard; 4BSD needs a general resource manager,
with which one can simply say `call this phone number' or `I want
a pty master and slave' or `I would like to write to joe'.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7690)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	seismo!mimsy!chris