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From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Large machines and tty naming conventions.
Message-ID: <6200@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 29-Jul-87 21:25:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.6200
Posted: Wed Jul 29 21:25:23 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Aug-87 01:05:58 EDT
References: <8550@brl-adm.ARPA>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 16

In article <8550@brl-adm.ARPA> jason@violet.Berkeley.EDU (Jason Venner) writes:
>It is time to rethink the naming conventions for devices.

Exactly right.

>The major & minor number needs to be changed, 8 bits for each is not enough.

Do you really have multiplexors that have more than 256 channels?
Each multiplexor could be a separate major device, aliased in the devsw.

>making directorys in /dev and putting files in there ...

This is one of my favorite ideas.  However, it does impact code such as "ps"
that "knew" the old scheme.

By the way, AT&T did this already for magtape and disk devices.