The TTY demystified (2008)
Summary
The TTY demystified is a thorough historical and technical tour of the Linux/UNIX TTY subsystem. It traces the evolution from teletype devices to modern terminal emulators and pseudo terminals, and then dives into the interplay between the TTY driver, line discipline, and userland processes. The article examines sessions, jobs, and signals, explores flow control and terminal configuration via stty and ioctl/termios, and provides practical explanations and diagrams to illuminate how interactive terminals behave in practice.