[TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS

[TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS

[Wesley Parish]

I had a look at OSNews.com and found a story about a nifty little  
terminal and its OS called Blit.

http://www.osnews.com/story/26315/ 
Blit_a_multitasking_windowed_UNIX_GUI_from_1982

I suspect getting hold of it would be like getting blood from a  
stone, much like getting the Research Unix source trees ... but still  
it would be interesting to look at if at all possible.

Wesley Parish

[TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS

[Wilko Bulte]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 764 bytes --]

We had a couple of those at work (Philips Information Systems) in the late 80s. They have long been scrapped I'd imagine.. 😳

Wilko

On 14 okt. 2012, at 11:58, Wesley Parish <wes.parish at paradise.net.nz> wrote:

> I had a look at OSNews.com and found a story about a nifty little terminal and its OS called Blit.
> 
> http://www.osnews.com/story/26315/Blit_a_multitasking_windowed_UNIX_GUI_from_1982
> 
> I suspect getting hold of it would be like getting blood from a stone, much like getting the Research Unix source trees ... but still it would be interesting to look at if at all possible.
> 
> Wesley Parish
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

[TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS

[arnold]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1527 bytes --]

The code for the 630 (a followon to the blit) was GPL2'ed at some point
and I have it, although I don't remember where I got it.  I will try to
send it to Warren for addition to the archives.

I used a 5620 for a while, hooked up to a BSD 4.1 Vax. The vax was overloaded
so things were slow, but it was a relatively pleasant environment. The keyboard
was really nice, and there are still people who pine for the 3-button round
Depraz (sp?) mouse... :-)

I wonder if you couldn't find some of these still on eBay or something.

Arnold
---------------
Wilko Bulte <wkb at xs4all.nl> wrote:

> We had a couple of those at work (Philips Information Systems) in the late 80s. They have long been scrapped I'd imagine.. ␦
>
> Wilko
>
> On 14 okt. 2012, at 11:58, Wesley Parish <wes.parish at paradise.net.nz> wrote:
>
> > I had a look at OSNews.com and found a story about a nifty little terminal and its OS called Blit.
> > 
> > http://www.osnews.com/story/26315/Blit_a_multitasking_windowed_UNIX_GUI_from_1982
> > 
> > I suspect getting hold of it would be like getting blood from a stone, much like getting the Research Unix source trees ... but still it would be interesting to look at if at all possible.
> > 
> > Wesley Parish
> > _______________________________________________
> > TUHS mailing list
> > TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> > https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

[TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS

[arnold]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1909 bytes --]

OK: Here is where I got stuff from:

	http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/att/5620/

Enjoy,

Arnold
-------------------------------
arnold at skeeve.com wrote:

> The code for the 630 (a followon to the blit) was GPL2'ed at some point
> and I have it, although I don't remember where I got it.  I will try to
> send it to Warren for addition to the archives.
>
> I used a 5620 for a while, hooked up to a BSD 4.1 Vax. The vax was overloaded
> so things were slow, but it was a relatively pleasant environment. The keyboard
> was really nice, and there are still people who pine for the 3-button round
> Depraz (sp?) mouse... :-)
>
> I wonder if you couldn't find some of these still on eBay or something.
>
> Arnold
> ---------------
> Wilko Bulte <wkb at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
> > We had a couple of those at work (Philips Information Systems) in the late 80s. They have long been scrapped I'd imagine.. ␦
> >
> > Wilko
> >
> > On 14 okt. 2012, at 11:58, Wesley Parish <wes.parish at paradise.net.nz> wrote:
> >
> > > I had a look at OSNews.com and found a story about a nifty little terminal and its OS called Blit.
> > > 
> > > http://www.osnews.com/story/26315/Blit_a_multitasking_windowed_UNIX_GUI_from_1982
> > > 
> > > I suspect getting hold of it would be like getting blood from a stone, much like getting the Research Unix source trees ... but still it would be interesting to look at if at all possible.
> > > 
> > > Wesley Parish
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > TUHS mailing list
> > > TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> > > https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> > _______________________________________________
> > TUHS mailing list
> > TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> > https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

[TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS

[Brian Zick]

> I used a 5620 for a while, hooked up to a BSD 4.1 Vax. The vax was overloaded
> so things were slow, but it was a relatively pleasant environment. The keyboard
> was really nice, and there are still people who pine for the 3-button round
> Depraz (sp?) mouse... :-)

What does a Blit 3-button round Depraz mouse look like? I've searched,
but alas I have not found.

Brian Zick
zickzickzick.com

[TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS

[Brantley Coile]

Like a lady bug with no spots.  I have a 730 in my office. 

iPhone email

On Oct 14, 2012, at 11:18 AM, "Brian Zick" <artistenator at gmail.com> wrote:

>> I used a 5620 for a while, hooked up to a BSD 4.1 Vax. The vax was overloaded
>> so things were slow, but it was a relatively pleasant environment. The keyboard
>> was really nice, and there are still people who pine for the 3-button round
>> Depraz (sp?) mouse... :-)
> 
> What does a Blit 3-button round Depraz mouse look like? I've searched,
> but alas I have not found.
> 
> Brian Zick
> zickzickzick.com
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

[TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS

[Benjamin Huntsman]

Like this:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/87479714 at N05/8087576305/

That one has the Bell Labs USB modification, and works like a charm under Windows 7! :)

-Ben

________________________________________
From: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org [tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org] on behalf of Brantley Coile [brantley@coraid.com]
Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 11:47 AM
To: Brian Zick
Cc: tuhs at tuhs.org; arnold at skeeve.com
Subject: Re: [TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS

Like a lady bug with no spots.  I have a 730 in my office.

iPhone email

On Oct 14, 2012, at 11:18 AM, "Brian Zick" <artistenator at gmail.com> wrote:

>> I used a 5620 for a while, hooked up to a BSD 4.1 Vax. The vax was overloaded
>> so things were slow, but it was a relatively pleasant environment. The keyboard
>> was really nice, and there are still people who pine for the 3-button round
>> Depraz (sp?) mouse... :-)
>
> What does a Blit 3-button round Depraz mouse look like? I've searched,
> but alas I have not found.
>
> Brian Zick
> zickzickzick.com
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

[TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS

[scj]

This brings back fond memories.  Applications running on the main computer
downloaded custom code to run on the Blit--this was the biggest
challenge--writing an application to run on two machines at once, with two
different OS's, different hardware and different endian-ness.  When it was
working, it was great, but debugging new code could be a real challenge.

Steve


> Like this:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/87479714 at N05/8087576305/
>
> That one has the Bell Labs USB modification, and works like a charm under
> Windows 7! :)
>
> -Ben
>
> ________________________________________
> From: tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org [tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org] on
> behalf of Brantley Coile [brantley at coraid.com]
> Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 11:47 AM
> To: Brian Zick
> Cc: tuhs at tuhs.org; arnold at skeeve.com
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS
>
> Like a lady bug with no spots.  I have a 730 in my office.
>
> iPhone email
>
> On Oct 14, 2012, at 11:18 AM, "Brian Zick" <artistenator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> I used a 5620 for a while, hooked up to a BSD 4.1 Vax. The vax was
>>> overloaded
>>> so things were slow, but it was a relatively pleasant environment. The
>>> keyboard
>>> was really nice, and there are still people who pine for the 3-button
>>> round
>>> Depraz (sp?) mouse... :-)
>>
>> What does a Blit 3-button round Depraz mouse look like? I've searched,
>> but alas I have not found.
>>
>> Brian Zick
>> zickzickzick.com
>> _______________________________________________
>> TUHS mailing list
>> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>

[TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS

[Brian Zick]

That DOES look like a ladybug without any spots. I've been using one
of those "magic" mouses from Apple. I've been fine with it but others
can hardly seem to use it without swearing. Of course I had to set it
up for three buttons, but they are "invisible". I do wish it came in a
corded version.

Brian Zick
zickzickzick.com


On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 4:21 PM, Benjamin Huntsman
<BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu> wrote:
> Like this:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/87479714 at N05/8087576305/
>
> That one has the Bell Labs USB modification, and works like a charm under Windows 7! :)
>
> -Ben
>
> ________________________________________
> From: tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org [tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org] on behalf of Brantley Coile [brantley at coraid.com]
> Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 11:47 AM
> To: Brian Zick
> Cc: tuhs at tuhs.org; arnold at skeeve.com
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS
>
> Like a lady bug with no spots.  I have a 730 in my office.
>
> iPhone email
>
> On Oct 14, 2012, at 11:18 AM, "Brian Zick" <artistenator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> I used a 5620 for a while, hooked up to a BSD 4.1 Vax. The vax was overloaded
>>> so things were slow, but it was a relatively pleasant environment. The keyboard
>>> was really nice, and there are still people who pine for the 3-button round
>>> Depraz (sp?) mouse... :-)
>>
>> What does a Blit 3-button round Depraz mouse look like? I've searched,
>> but alas I have not found.
>>
>> Brian Zick
>> zickzickzick.com
>> _______________________________________________
>> TUHS mailing list
>> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

[TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS

[Larry McVoy]

My fond memories, if my old brain doesn't fail me, is being a TA at
the University of Wisconsin.  I shared an office with another TA,
we had one BLIT but I managed to scrounge another one.  We had a
serial line that ran from our building to the building that had 
all the vaxen, just one.

So I bread boarded some 8051's (I think that's them, they were 8 bit
computers that you could flash).  What I noticed was that all the stuff
we did was 8 bit clean, only used the lower 7.  So, 8th bit was the mux.
On was me, off was my office mate.  I programmed the 8051's and convinced
the lab (run by Paul Beebe, he still around?  Wouldn't be surprised if
he's on the list) to let me stick one in there, the other in our office,
presto!  Two BLITs and two extremely happy TA's.

I *loved* the BLIT, it was pretty much everything I wanted from a terminal,
it was like the NCD Xterminal only a decade or two sooner.  And kind of 
more cool because it worked over a serial line.

--lm

P.S. Pretty cool that I'm responding to the guy who wrote yacc.  Thanks
for that, I've gotten a lot done with lex/yacc over the years.  As have
countless other people.  Might be interesting to hear your storie about
what people have done with yacc - has anyone ever added up how many
yacc grammers there are out there?

On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 04:00:53PM -0700, scj at yaccman.com wrote:
> This brings back fond memories.  Applications running on the main computer
> downloaded custom code to run on the Blit--this was the biggest
> challenge--writing an application to run on two machines at once, with two
> different OS's, different hardware and different endian-ness.  When it was
> working, it was great, but debugging new code could be a real challenge.
> 
> Steve
> 
> 
> > Like this:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/87479714 at N05/8087576305/
> >
> > That one has the Bell Labs USB modification, and works like a charm under
> > Windows 7! :)
> >
> > -Ben
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org [tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org] on
> > behalf of Brantley Coile [brantley at coraid.com]
> > Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 11:47 AM
> > To: Brian Zick
> > Cc: tuhs at tuhs.org; arnold at skeeve.com
> > Subject: Re: [TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS
> >
> > Like a lady bug with no spots.  I have a 730 in my office.
> >
> > iPhone email
> >
> > On Oct 14, 2012, at 11:18 AM, "Brian Zick" <artistenator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>> I used a 5620 for a while, hooked up to a BSD 4.1 Vax. The vax was
> >>> overloaded
> >>> so things were slow, but it was a relatively pleasant environment. The
> >>> keyboard
> >>> was really nice, and there are still people who pine for the 3-button
> >>> round
> >>> Depraz (sp?) mouse... :-)
> >>
> >> What does a Blit 3-button round Depraz mouse look like? I've searched,
> >> but alas I have not found.
> >>
> >> Brian Zick
> >> zickzickzick.com
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> TUHS mailing list
> >> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> >> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> > _______________________________________________
> > TUHS mailing list
> > TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> > https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> > _______________________________________________
> > TUHS mailing list
> > TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> > https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> >
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

-- 
---
Larry McVoy                lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitkeeper.com

[TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS

[Gregg Levine]

On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 8:24 PM, Larry McVoy <lm at bitmover.com> wrote:
> My fond memories, if my old brain doesn't fail me, is being a TA at
> the University of Wisconsin.  I shared an office with another TA,
> we had one BLIT but I managed to scrounge another one.  We had a
> serial line that ran from our building to the building that had
> all the vaxen, just one.
>
> So I bread boarded some 8051's (I think that's them, they were 8 bit
> computers that you could flash).  What I noticed was that all the stuff
> we did was 8 bit clean, only used the lower 7.  So, 8th bit was the mux.
> On was me, off was my office mate.  I programmed the 8051's and convinced
> the lab (run by Paul Beebe, he still around?  Wouldn't be surprised if
> he's on the list) to let me stick one in there, the other in our office,
> presto!  Two BLITs and two extremely happy TA's.
>
> I *loved* the BLIT, it was pretty much everything I wanted from a terminal,
> it was like the NCD Xterminal only a decade or two sooner.  And kind of
> more cool because it worked over a serial line.
>
> --lm
>
> P.S. Pretty cool that I'm responding to the guy who wrote yacc.  Thanks
> for that, I've gotten a lot done with lex/yacc over the years.  As have
> countless other people.  Might be interesting to hear your storie about
> what people have done with yacc - has anyone ever added up how many
> yacc grammers there are out there?
>
> On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 04:00:53PM -0700, scj at yaccman.com wrote:
>> This brings back fond memories.  Applications running on the main computer
>> downloaded custom code to run on the Blit--this was the biggest
>> challenge--writing an application to run on two machines at once, with two
>> different OS's, different hardware and different endian-ness.  When it was
>> working, it was great, but debugging new code could be a real challenge.
>>
>> Steve
>>
>>
>> > Like this:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/87479714 at N05/8087576305/
>> >
>> > That one has the Bell Labs USB modification, and works like a charm under
>> > Windows 7! :)
>> >
>> > -Ben
>> >
>> > ________________________________________
>> > From: tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org [tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org] on
>> > behalf of Brantley Coile [brantley at coraid.com]
>> > Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 11:47 AM
>> > To: Brian Zick
>> > Cc: tuhs at tuhs.org; arnold at skeeve.com
>> > Subject: Re: [TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS
>> >
>> > Like a lady bug with no spots.  I have a 730 in my office.
>> >
>> > iPhone email
>> >
>> > On Oct 14, 2012, at 11:18 AM, "Brian Zick" <artistenator at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >>> I used a 5620 for a while, hooked up to a BSD 4.1 Vax. The vax was
>> >>> overloaded
>> >>> so things were slow, but it was a relatively pleasant environment. The
>> >>> keyboard
>> >>> was really nice, and there are still people who pine for the 3-button
>> >>> round
>> >>> Depraz (sp?) mouse... :-)
>> >>
>> >> What does a Blit 3-button round Depraz mouse look like? I've searched,
>> >> but alas I have not found.
>> >>
>> >> Brian Zick
>> >> zickzickzick.com
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> TUHS mailing list
>> >> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>> >> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > TUHS mailing list
>> > TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>> > https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > TUHS mailing list
>> > TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>> > https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>> >
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> TUHS mailing list
>> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>
> --
> ---
> Larry McVoy                lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitkeeper.com
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs


Hello!
Great government! I saw one of those and a 3B at the Vintage Computer
Festival last May. The terminal worked fine, the computer kept telling
the two people to go ******** themselves.

-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

[TUHS] AT&T video : the UNIX system (1982)

[Pierre DAVID]

On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 10:58:11PM +1300, Wesley Parish wrote:
> I had a look at OSNews.com and found a story about a nifty little  
> terminal and its OS called Blit.
> 
> http://www.osnews.com/story/26315/ 
> Blit_a_multitasking_windowed_UNIX_GUI_from_1982
> 
> I suspect getting hold of it would be like getting blood from a  
> stone, much like getting the Research Unix source trees ... but still  
> it would be interesting to look at if at all possible.
> 

On the same AT&T archive site, nobody mentionned:
    http://techchannel.att.com/play-video.cfm/2012/2/22/AT&T-Archives-The-UNIX-System

Extract from the presentation:
    This film "The UNIX System: Making Computers More Productive",
    is one of two that Bell Labs made in 1982 about UNIX's significance,
    impact and usability. Even 10 years after its first installation,
    it's still an introduction to the system. The other film, "The
    UNIX System: Making Computers Easier to Use", is roughly the
    same, only a little shorter. The former film was geared towards
    software developers and computer science students, the latter
    towards programmers specifically.

    The film contains interviews with primary developers Ritchie,
    Thompson, Brian Kernighan, and many others.

This film is a "must see" for all tuhs-icians,

Pierre

[TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS

[David Evans]

On 14 Oct 2012, at 21:21, Benjamin Huntsman <BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu> wrote:

> Like this:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/87479714 at N05/8087576305/
> 

Alas those of us who came along 8 or so years later had only the DEC VSXXX to enjoy.

[TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS

[Peter Jeremy]

On 2012-Oct-14 17:24:44 -0700, Larry McVoy <lm at bitmover.com> wrote:
>So I bread boarded some 8051's (I think that's them, they were 8 bit
>computers that you could flash).

Intel made 2 8-bit microcontroller families - MCS-48 (introduced 1976)
and MCS-51 (introduced 1980).  Both had EEPROM variants (8748 and
8751).  I used variants of both during the 1980's.

Both families are still around - in particular, the 8042 still present
in spirit in your IBM-compatible PC is a MCS-48 variant.

-- 
Peter Jeremy
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 196 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/attachments/20121015/db5ed8ed/attachment.sig>