Think of them as being special devices with constraints on them. Like
character devices for cartridge tape drives on other *ixes, which can only
read multiples of 512 bytes at multiple-of-512-byte offsets because that's
all the tape drive itself will do. (Not applicable to Linux because Linux
uses block devices and reblocks the I/O in the kernel... which has its own
drawbacks.)
-- brandon s. allbery [os/2][linux][solaris][japh] allbery@kf8nh.apk.net system administrator [WAY too many hats] allbery@ece.cmu.edu electrical and computer engineering carnegie mellon university (bsa@kf8nh is still valid.)
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