On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 01:17:35PM -0700, Cam Ellison wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Jun 2001 12:52:17 -0700
> Micah Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > A tty is actually an archaic abbreviation that isn't really used in
> > it's original meaning - teletype (I believe - someone correct me
> > otherwise). These were 'dumb' terminals that just knew how to accept
> > and display text, and communicate with a 'smarter' server.
> >
> Dumb is hardly the word. The original teletypes were developed as a
> replacement for the telegraph -- sort of a glorified electromechanical
> typewriter, and used a 5-bit coding system. The fancy ones had a tape
> puncher/reader, so you could make long messages without a horrible
> number of mistakes. They were pretty cool in their own way -- round
> about 1942.
Dumb terminal is actually the technical terminology (or nearly so) :)
It indicates that all the real processing is done elsewhere.
Obviously they weren't called that when they came out, but they were
when systems became available that could run circles around them.
Micah
