9fans archive / 2001 / 10 / 608 /    prev next

From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" <DAGwyn@nul...>
Subject: Re: [9fans] What makes Plan 9 unique?
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 09:25:26 GMT

Russ Cox wrote:
> ... there is no tty driver in the kernel.  The window system
> handles the nuances of terminal input.

Not for a terminal on a serial port, it doesn't.  Braille terminal
users (for example) are ill-served by embedding interactive support
in a windowing graphics interface.

There have been many "integrated" OSes; for example TI's 900-series
(before the 990) came with an OS that integrated the terminal driver
and consequently supported *only* specific TI video terminals with
special high-speed cabling.  That design probably contributed to the
lack of commercial success for those systems.

There is a lot to be said for keeping system structures as modular
as possible, to increase options for how things can be configured.