On 22/01/2024 22:33, Stefan Monnier wrote:
That's the way it was built -- just mimicking the "real terminal cum firmware" which was replaced with "DOS/Windows PC cum terminal application".I think it's more than that. It's a design that makes a lot of sense: it would be more complex having to connect both the terminal and the printer to the server, since the terminal and printer really belong together.
It had a lot of sense at the time when terminals were directly wired to servers. Currently it is ssh over TCP/IP over Ethernet or WiFi and there is no a terminal emulator application that supports off-band communication with printer out of the box. So independent connections on any network layer would be more flexible.
Server-side code mixing 2 data streams into single channel may be a bit more simple than association of 2 connections with the same client, but the price is this long thread.