Terminal

tags :

teletypewriter #

tele

at a distance

typewriter :

How the name came into being? #

Teleprinters #

• In 1800s these machines could send typed messages “down the wire” to distant locations.
• The messages were typed by the sender on a keyboard of sorts.
• They were printed on paper at the receiving end.
• They were an evolutionary step in telegraphy, which had previously relied on Morse and similar
• Baudot’s encoding eventually became the closest thing to a standard in teleprinter encoding, and it was adopted by most manufacturers.
• Baudot’s original hardware design had only five keys, similar to piano keys. The operator was required to learn a particular key combination for each letter.
• Eventually, the Baudot encoding system was coupled to a traditional keyboard layout.
• To mark that advancement, the machines were named teletypewriters.

Teletype repurposed for computers #

• The teletype was the perfect candidate as an input/output device. It was, after all, a device designed to allow messages to be typed, encoded, sent, received, decoded, and printed.
• What did the teletype care if the device at the other end of the connection wasn’t another teletype? As long as it spoke the same encoding language and could receive messages and send messages back, the teletype was happy.

Hardware Emulated Teletypes #

• Teletypes became the default means of interacting with the large mini and mainframe computers of that era.
• They were eventually replaced by devices that emulated those electro-mechanical machines using electronics. These had Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs) instead of paper rolls.
• They permitted hitherto impossible functionality, such as moving the cursor around the screen, clearing the screen, bolding text, and so on.

Software Emulated Teletype #

• In the of and other -like operating systems such as , the terminal window and
• applications such as x-term and Konsole are examples of virtual teletypes.
  • But these are emulated entirely in software.
  • They are called pseudo-teletypes.
  • This was shortened to PTS.

Virtual Terminal #

Ctrl + Alt [1..7]

Shortcuts to open

A Virtual Terminal is a full-screen terminal which doesn’t run inside an X window - - (unlike the terminal window on your graphical desktop).

Virtual terminals are found on all GNU/systems, even on systems which don’t have a or graphical system installed.

Detach process from terminal #

• to detach a process from the terminal entirely
• we may want to run the command in the background so the terminal is free for other work
  • for long running processes
  • to run the process in the background to make terminal available

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