Details
The ioctl system call was originally supported only on terminal devices, also known as TTY; for this reason, the name of the error for "using the ioctl system call to a device that is not a TTY" was abbreviated as ENOTTY.
"Typewriter" was what early UNIX systems called a terminal. This usage goes all the way back to the First Edition of the Unix Programmer's Manual, dated November 3, 1971. For example, the description of the "hup" command was "hup hangs up the phone on the typewriter which uses it." The abbreviation TTY, which occurs widely even in modern UNIX systems, stood for "Teletype." The generic term "typewriter" was probably used because "Teletype" was a registered trademark of AT&T subsidiary Teletype Corporation and was too specific. The name "Teletype" was derived from the more general term, "teletypewriter"; using "typewriter" was a different contraction of the same original term.
Because ioctl is now supported on other devices than terminals, some systems display a different message such as "Inappropriate ioctl for device" instead.
Read more about this topic: Not A Typewriter
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