> Date: Mon, 18 Mar 96 14:13:55 -0500 (EST)
> From: woods@most.weird.com (Greg A. Woods)

> > The /dev/kd device exists as a real device so that the /dev/console
> > "redirector" has a real device to "point at."  [...]

> What do you mean by ``the console "redirector"''?  Do you mean the
> smarts in the kernel which look at the EEPROM settings and decide what
> to talk to?

The /dev/console device is a "redirector" in that it can not do
anything without having a "real" device to point at.  The redirection
stuff is implemented in the (generic) sys/dev/cons.c but its pointer
to the real device is set by sun3-specific code (sun3/dev/zs.c) based
on the EEPROM settings.

> If the dualing gettys problem is the user-land purpose of /dev/kd,
> then I indeed approve. 

Right.  If you never run a getty on /dev/console, then you will
never get "dualing gettys" due to a /dev/console alias.

> Unless someone beats me to the job (I won't likely get a start on it
> until I've shaken out enough of my environment to get NetBSD/sun3
> running on my server), I'll send-pr some manual pages for these devices.

Hey, that would be great!  (I loathe doing documentation...)

Gordon