tel·e·type·writ·er  (těl'ĭ-tīp'rī'tər)  n. Abbr. TTY or TT An electromechanical typewriter that either transmits or receives messages coded in electrical signals carried by telegraph or telephone wires. |
| TTY abbr. teletypewriter |
tty hardware
/tit'ee/ (ITS pronunciation, but some Unix people say it this way as well; this pronunciation is not considered to have sexual undertones), /T T Y/
1. teletypewriter.
2. (Especially Unix) Any terminal at all; sometimes used to refer to the particular terminal controlling a given job (it is also the name of a Unix command which outputs the name of the current controlling terminal).
3. (Unix) Any serial port, whether or not the device connected to it is a terminal; so called because under Unix such devices have names of the form tty*. Ambiguity between senses 2 and 3 is common but seldom bothersome.
4. A TDD.
[The Jargon File]
(1995-11-23)
| TTY teletypewriter |
