On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 05:44:50PM +0200, Örn Hansen wrote:
onsdag 13 oktober 2004 10:00 skrev Allen:
Why is an Xterm called that after a Terminal when a Terminal is where something ends.... What were they thinking calling it that. Isn't it properly called a console? Or what? What do you call a box that's only using a command line, like run level 3....That's not a Terminal is it? I have no idea what to call these things, because I've been told Terminal is where something ends, so it would be console, but... OK I've confused myself.... I think I'm going to run too the store and get a pack of smokes heh.
So what is a Terminal, and what is a console? Someone help! ;)
A bus terminal, is not only where the journey ends ... it's also where it begins. If you think of it in terms of a Mainframe system, you have your central processing unit ... which needs data. The data begins its journey at a terminal, which functions as a gateway to the Central Processing Unit (Today called a processor, in the old days it took an entire floor). The data is processed, stored ... and then at some point, it is a part of another journey to another terminal, for display. So, a terminal marks an entry and exit point, for information for a central processing.
A console ... once upon a time, you had these huge computers ... like the VAX. It didn't have any visual terminal, all it had was a numic pad. This is where you had to key in the bood sequence, for the computer to actually boot the operating system. At those times, a terminal was a tele typewriter. A console, is the interface that is directly connected to the central processing system. Taking it directly from a dictionary:
1. A central control panel for a mechanical, electrical, or electronic system. 2. An instrument panel.
Then, at some point we needed to be able to view more than one data at a time. We didn't have Graphical User Interfaces then, but we did have simple terminal based interfaces to home computers, like Commodore Pet, or Apple. All basic variants, came up with extensions that included the statement WINDOW X1,Y1,X2,Y2 ... which meaning was siilar to Terminal above. Except, that we now think of it as a Window into the Central Processing Unit or the Information Processing. Before the GUI ever came, text based interfaces were capable of displaying windows ... there's even an old library, from the old unix systems ... called curses, now it's known as ncurses. Of course, this was way before Microsoft claimed they invented Windows :-) ... ahh, sorry Microsoft Windows (R) :-)
Hope that helps, :-) Örn Thanks man! That was good! Ncurses rocks, I use it when I set up Free BSD boxes, and of course, YAST2 in Run Level 2. Awesome man.