console
1. The operator's station of a mainframe. In times past, this was a privileged
location that conveyed godlike powers to anyone with fingers on its keys. Under
Unix and other modern time-sharing operating systems, such privileges are
guarded by passwords instead, and the console is just the tty the system was
booted from. Some of the mystique remains, however, and it is traditional for
sysadmins to post urgent messages to all users from the console (on Unix,
/dev/console).
2. On microcomputer Unix boxes, the main screen and keyboard (as opposed to
character-only terminals talking to a serial port). Typically only the console
can do real graphics or run X. See also CTY.
[Jargon File]
Nearby terms:
conservative evaluation « considered harmful «
consistently complete « console » console
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