[TUHS] Re: Can someone advise me regarding a gui for UNIX

[TUHS] Re: Can someone advise me regarding a gui for UNIX

[Brian S Walden]

Another hurdle for the 5620/630/730 lines of terminals was when I
tried getting software support. Teletype being a mostly a "dumb"
terminal manufacturer never considered them more that a way to have
multilple 80 char x 24 line terminals on one display. I had difficulty
in conveying to them that it was a computer in its own right and you
could program it. The marketing was probably just as limited in scope.

Another blow for the BLIT portion on the terminal came when you
cound get an external cartridge for the 730 that turned it
into an X-terminal. I got mine in 1991 and then rarely used
layers after that.
-B

[TUHS] re: Can someone advise me regarding a gui for UNIX

[Mike Haertel]

 >  22. Pike, R. "The Blit: A Multiplexed Graphics Terminal". _AT&T Bell
 >  Laboratories Technical Journal 63_, 8 (Oct. 1984).

The thing I miss most about the 5620 is Cargill's wonderful little
debugger "pi".  Does anyone know if it was ever ported to X, and
if so, is the source available?

I remain amazed that nobody at Bell Labs ever ported it to Plan 9,
although I suppose both the use of C++ and the completely new symbol
table format in Plan 9 executables would make that a challenge.

[TUHS] re: Can someone advise me regarding a gui for UNIX

[Dennis Ritchie]

Norman Wilson recalled

 >  22. Pike, R. "The Blit: A Multiplexed Graphics Terminal". _AT&T Bell
 >  Laboratories Technical Journal 63_, 8 (Oct. 1984).

 > Rob described an earlier version of the Blit work in a USENIX talk
 > at USENIX in January 1982 (Santa Monica CA).  So far as I know it
 > was just a talk, no paper, though he showed a canned demo on video
 > tape.

By coincidence, one of the two videos made about early Blit
work is newly available in .mpg format: look near the
bottom of Rob Pike's page under Movies:

  http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/who/rob/index.html

This was just now done by Gerard Holzmann.

Be aware that it is 43MB in size.

This version is spoken by actors, although the script
is Rob's.

The other Blit video is in Betacam format, and we don't
currently have a player for it, so it's not digitized.
I think it's silent, and presumably Rob talked during its
showing.  This might be what accompanied the Usenix talk.

(By the way, there are two other, twice-as large
videos there: the Labscam tape, and Rob's appearance
on the David Letterman TV show with Penn and Teller.)

	Dennis

[TUHS] Re: Can someone advise me regarding a gui for UNIX

[Dennis Ritchie]

Norman Wilson's account of the Jerq/Blit etc. is quite
complete and correct, though there was some recycling
of names.  'Jerq' actually was used quite early, when
Pike got interested in bitmap graphics.  The name
was a takeoff on the Three Rivers Perq, which he (and I)
saw at Lucasfilm Ltd. while attending an early Usenix.
Blit was the slightly more PC version (suggested either
as part of BitBlt or "Bell Labs Interactive Terminal).
The originals used the Motorola 68000, and part of
the development messup was AT&T Computer systems'
decision to switch to the WE32000 processor with
consequent delay for porting and reworking.

The earliest versions were not quite as wonderful
in practice as Norman suggests for the later ones.
They were built by the Teletype corp. model shop
(in quantity of a few hundred) and downloading
the OS took several minutes at 1200bps--necessary
at startup, since they didn't have a ROM for the whole
thing, just enough for doing a download.  They
were also static electricity antennas!  Many
is the time that I would shift in my chair, then
touch the keyboard, only to have the terminal
reset itself.  I developed the habit of putting my
hand on the heavy steel case before moving around.

On the other hand, the basic idea was architecturally
right (and the later commercial versions were not so
subject to static, and had ROM for the OS).  They
were even nicer at 9600bps.

It's good to know that Norman is still using his.

	Dennis