Todd Vierling writes:
> On Tue, 13 Jan 1998, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> 
> : Again and again, WHY? dev_t's have been 32 bit opaque values for the
> : longest time -- we just didn't use the top bits. There is no reason to
> : do this sort of thing. The *only* thing we need COMPAT_ for is to
> : instruct the kernel to honor old device numbers for a while. It is
> : true that an old mknod binary will lose on a new machine. "So what?"
> 
> There will be a 32->16 bit conversion of some sort to give `some reasonable
> values' to userland for tty identification.

Are you blind? Do I need to use all caps?

DEV_T'S HAVE BEEN 32 BITS FOREVER.

ANY PROGRAM COMPARING DEV_T'S HAS BEEN COMPARING 32 BIT VALUES
FOR A VERY LONG TIME.

THERE IS NO NEED TO DO 16 BIT CONVERSIONS. ANY REASONABLE PROGRAM WILL
"JUST WORK".

Perry