Os números principal e secundário de um dispositivo são os mesmos que o tipo de dispositivo e o número do subdivisor descritos no Manual Unix da Versão 7?

Question

De acordo com um artigo no manual, escrito por Ken Thompson e Dennis Ritchie:

When an I/O request is made to a file whose i-node indicates that it is special, the last 12 device address words are immaterial, and the first specifies an internal device name, which is interpreted as a pair of numbers representing, respectively, a device type and subdevice number. The device type indicates which system routine will deal with I/O on that device; the subdevice number selects, for example, a disk drive attached to a particular controller or one of several similar terminal interfaces.

A documentação do Linux sobre armazenamento em massa descreve as principais e números de dispositivos menores:

When accessing a device file, the major number selects which device driver is being called to perform the input/output operation. This call is being done with the minor number as a parameter and it is entirely up to the driver how the minor number is being interpreted. The driver documentation usually describes how the driver uses minor numbers.

Eu estou querendo saber se estas duas literaturas descrevem o mesmo conceito. É um pouco confuso.