Monthly Archives: December 2012

In previous posts, I have often mentioned the term “pseudoterminal” without explaining what it means. In this final part, I will cover the function and applications of pseudoterminals in detail. Up until this point I have been focusing on describing … Continue reading →

In part four, I described terminal ioctls in detail, but I skipped over a few calls that have to do with job control, a topic so important that it deserves its own part. Job control describes a number of features … Continue reading →

In part three, I gave an overview of terminal ioctls and terminal capabilities, and promised I would discuss both in part four. In part four, I discussed terminal ioctls in detail, and ran out of space to talk about terminal … Continue reading →

In part three, I introduced terminal ioctls and terminal capabilities. This post will focus on the nitty-gritty, hopefully without devolving into a set of manual pages. All terminal ioctls can be performed using the function ioctl(2). However, most of them … Continue reading →

In part two, I discussed Linux devices in some detail, and discussed terminal devices briefly. In this post I will go into terminal devices in a bit more detail. In the previous part, I pointed out how terminal devices fit … Continue reading →

In part one, I laid out the four different definitions of “terminal”, and pointed out that from here on in, I would be speaking mostly of terminal devices such as /dev/tty1. First, a short discussion on how Linux devices work … Continue reading →

Let’s start off with something easy. What is a terminal? Actually, this turns out to be not so easy. I count at least four possible meanings of terminal in a computing context. First: A terminal(a) or physical terminal (as I … Continue reading →

There’s an odd kind of arrogance to me—I often behave as though I think I can explain things much better than other people. Sometimes I am accorded the rare opportunity of being one of the first to explain something, such … Continue reading →

I just attended the final lecture of one of my Fall 2012 classes, Chemistry 348, Organic Reaction Mechanisms. My professor was a grad student at Harvard in the late 1960s, where R. B. Woodward and E. J. Corey were professors. He told the class … Continue reading →