From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!esquire!nrh
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Title: why not make it simple
Article-I.D.: esquire.374
Posted: Fri Jul 30 10:35:50 1982
Received: Sat Jul 31 02:51:57 1982
References: sri-unix.2334

The main reason for not just adding stuff to the tty driver because it
"is an obvious enhancement", or it "would be useful" is that the tty
interface should be as simple, as clean, and as useful as possible.

The nice thing about keeping that stuff simple is that your code
remains transportable, and the tty code does not tend to bristle
with features added for special programs.  Harvard had at one time
3 special-program tty modes -- TECO mode, PPL mode, and DDT mode.
As I recall, they could have used either the modern CBREAK mode 
(it didn't exist then), or a "these chars are break chars" mode.

My own suggestion (untried) is that there should be a way to specify
which characters are "break" characters, and which characters are 
"signal" characters (very raw mode).  Given this, you only have the
problem of ^S/^Q, ^O, and the other goodies from tenex....

Didn't someone propose "mounting" tty code on "raw" ttys?  How did
that work out?