It’s one of those anachronisms that is deeply embedded in modern technology. From cloud operator servers to embedded controllers in appliances, there must be uncountable devices that think they are connected to a TTY.
I will omit the many interesting details of the Linux terminal infrastructure here, as it could easily fill its own article. But most Linux users are at least peripherally aware that the kernel tends to identify both serial devices and terminals as TTYs, assigning them filesystem names in the form of /dev/tty*. Probably a lot of those people remember that this stands for teletype or perhaps teletypewriter, although in practice the term teleprinter is more common.
↫ J. B. Crawford
I remember first using Linux in like 2000 or 2001, and running into the abbreviation tty, and not having a single clue what that meant since I came from a DOS and Windows background. Over time I gained a lot more understanding of the structure of modern UNIX-like systems, but it’s still great to read such a detailed history of the concept.
From my perspective the TTY interface was the norm, and the GUI came much later. Lots of late nights basking the glow of a green/amber/white phosphor terminal, typically a VT102 or later VT220 wired into a PDP-11 or VAX machine. Later, with some PC’s, running a terminal emulator to a mid-sized Sun or MIPS box, but still as a terminal serial connection. Later even still, network terminal services allowed switching among hosts, and some graphics capabilities once X Windows appeared. By that time there were Windows 3.x PCs and it became easy(ier) to access UN*X machines through X servers on the PC, but still graphical environments on most machines was lagging behind the world of PC/Mac/Amiga etc. My first experience on Linux was with a DEC Alpha machine, what we would called a mini-PC today. What was the first thing that comes up when you boot? Yup, the terminal interface.
My first programming experience was in 8th grade over 50 years ago. We used a Teletype ASR33 and a 110 baud dialup modem to access an HP minicomputer at the college in another town. When I first started, there was no disc storage, so all the programs were saved to punch tape. Ah, the fun and games with sticky punch tape confetti, so much fun to scatter everywhere! The use of the term tty for any kind of terminal made sense to me from my early experiences.
IBM mainframes have a legacy of the basic input/output sevice being a card punch and reader. Even today. Spinning-up a Linux VM on a shiny new multi-million dollar z-Series? Gotta configure a virtual card puch for it…