For anybody wondering "why couldn't they just...", there is a lot of complexity in TTYs and PTYs. The kernel is even involved in line discipline and job control

For anybody wondering "why couldn't they just...", there is a lot of complexity in TTYs and PTYs. The kernel is even involved in line discipline and job control. Those Ctrl+Z or Ctrl+C keys you press? The kernel gets involved. It may seem strange that there's a process signal for window-size changes, but that's what was needed back in 1985. There's a similar dance with the Amiga's console.device, but both Unix and Amiga TTYs are better than Windows' terminals where there was no such thing as a PTY until Windows 10, you had to make direct API calls, and even now it's still pretty slow: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/windows-command-line-introducing-the-windows-pseudo-console-conpty/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/windows-command-l... This page is a great overview pf the Unix TTY/PTY subsystem: https://www.linusakesson.net/programming/tty/ https://www.linusakesson.net/programming/tty/