TTY vs Terminal

[Jimmy Wu]

Don't quote me on this, but...

My understanding is that terminal is just a graphical "emulator" of sorts,
providing command-line functionality within a GUI like gnome or kde or
whatever for people who want both a command line and a graphical desktop.
I believe TTY stands for teletype or something like that.  They usually
consisted of a screen (output) and a keyboard (input).  TTY's were used in
the stone ages of computing, when the only computers people could use were
huge, expensive mainframes owned by large organizations with lots of money,
like corporations and universities.  Obviously,the average person couldn't
own one of these beasts, so the only way they could access mainframes was
through timesharing and terminals on TTY's - the user sat at the (text-only)
TTY terminal and typed commands, which were sent to the mainframe computer
that did all the work (processing the commands and sending back a
response).  One mainframe was usually connected to multiple terminals
(TTY's), and many people could logon simultaneously, which is where the term
timesharing came from.  Of course, all this became obsolete with the rise of
personal computers.

Jimmy


On 7/24/07, Banyan He <banyan at rootong.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Guys,
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> *TTY* - This term refers to a means of sending data one character at a
> time. The TTY interface is often used by dumb terminals to communicate
> with mainframes.
>
> Regards,
>
> Bob Hentges wrote:
> > Hey Arnold,
> >
> > On 7/24/07, Arnold Pietersen <arnold.pietersen at cecs.org.za> wrote:
> >
> >> Is there a difference between using tty and using the terminal?
> >>
> >
> > "tty" gives you the "name" of the terminal you are working on. So in
> > essence and as far as I know, there isn't a difference.
> >
> > Bob
> >
>
> --
> ---------------
> Banyan He
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>
>
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