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A terminal is a physical device for access to a computer. The VT-100 and Teletype ADM-33 are both examples. Xterm is a terminal emulator for X--it pretends to be something like a VT-220, so you can run your text mode programs.

TTY, of course, stands for Teletype, which was a common terminal used in the early days of Unix. In the old days, you'd talk about having a whole room full of TTYs. Now, it seems to refer to the emulated terminals provided by a Unix-like system.

A console would originally be a specific terminal (often hard-copy, like a Teletype) hooked directly to the computer for administrative tasks.




I remember seeing a a tty at a pay phone at a rest stop in Maine a few years ago (maybe 2007). IIRC, it was for the deaf.


You are correct. If you look at the bottom of posters/flyers for government services (suicide help lines, schedule services for transit, that sort of thing), you'll often see underneath "phone: " a line "TTY: " with a slightly different phonenumber following.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Telecommunica...




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