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Date: Thu, 31 Aug 1995 09:31:34 +1000
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Message-Id: <199508302331.JAA27466@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
To: bde@zeta.org.au, jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com
Subject: Re: Gritching about XFree86 and serial port naming
Cc: hackers@freebsd.org, peter@nmti.com
Sender: hackers-owner@freebsd.org
Precedence: bulk

>> "ttyd0" is not distinguishable from "cuad0" when truncated to 2 characters
>> for printing by ps, etc. :-)

>I would gladly trade that very minor bit of information in exchange for the
>ability to name 32 serial ports in an easy-to-remember-and-translate
>fashion.

>In the process of setting up a BocaBoard 2016, I basically stopped in my
>tracks when I hit the 13th port.

>"Um.  Ok, if I was on ttydf, I should really go to ttye0, but then what do I
>do with cuaaf, go to cuab0?"

I have a cyclades card on cuac[g-h] for testing ([0-f] are unused).  It's
confusing.

Hex numbering would confuse people who think in hex as badly as we do in
base 36 :-).

This problem should have been fixed for ptys long ago.  I guess it less
noticeable for ptys because there is no hardware to worry about.

Bruce