[TUHS] pseudo tty history

[Clem Cole]

Watch the dates - that's not UNIX.  In 1973, Version 4 Unix is first
released outside of BTL, so the Harvard system being talked about in RFC 89
is probably an 18 bit ??PDP6 maybe??.

On Fri, Aug 15, 2025 at 8:24 PM Bakul Shah via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:

> From RFC 89 (dated 19 January 1971) titled "Some historic moments in
> networking":
>
>    Second, the Harvard system has temporarily implemented this remote
>    network console interface feature using a DEC style pseudo-teletype
>    (PTY).
>
> From RFC 46 (dated April 1970) titled "'ARPA Network Protocol Notes":
>
>    3. A standard way for a newly created process to initiate pseudo-
>       typewriter communication with the foreign process which requested
>       its creation.
>
>
> On Aug 15, 2025, at 6:49 PM, ron minnich <rminnich at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> was there ever a telnet or other remote access program that predated ptys
> on Unix? Was telnet the driving force for ptys? Did the folks implementing
> Unix networking bring in ptys before, or as part of, or after networking,
> i.e. did folks building networking for Unix realize they needed ptys once
> they started working on telnet, or did they plan for ptys from the get go?
> I was an observer for some of this stuff, but as a 20-year-old at UDEL I
> was also quite out of the loop.
>
>  I also realize there were multiple Unix networking efforts, so this
> question is somewhat simplistic.
>
> I'm assuming rsh came a bit later.
>
> On Fri, Aug 15, 2025 at 4:19 PM Tom Lyon <pugs78 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Yeah, I was thinking that 4.1c BSD must've had them for rlogin and telnet.
>>
>> Which got me looking for Fabry and Bill Joy's design/planning documents
>> for 4.2, which are not in the TUHS archives.
>> Anyone got them??
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 15, 2025 at 4:15 PM Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:
>>
>>> At the very least, 4.2BSD had them for telnet and rlogin. They were
>>> static, though. You had to MAKEDEV enough units.
>>>
>>> Warner
>>>
>>> On Fri, Aug 15, 2025, 5:00 PM ron minnich <rminnich at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> That was my guess. I figured the people who did the work are on this
>>>> list, and primary sources rule.
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Aug 15, 2025 at 3:56 PM Ron Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I think that wikipedia history is somewhat garbled when it comes to
>>>>> the UNIX implementations.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/attachments/20250815/7875c178/attachment.htm>