From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 15633 invoked from network); 14 Feb 2021 02:50:41 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 14 Feb 2021 02:50:41 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 6D8BE9C870; Sun, 14 Feb 2021 12:50:37 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0AFFC9507B; Sun, 14 Feb 2021 12:50:06 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id B5F0D9507B; Sun, 14 Feb 2021 12:50:02 +1000 (AEST) Received: from fourwinds.com (fourwinds.com [63.64.179.162]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 0B25F9503C for ; Sun, 14 Feb 2021 12:50:01 +1000 (AEST) Received: from darkstar.fourwinds.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by fourwinds.com (8.15.2/8.15.2) with ESMTPS id 11E2nvGg2519350 (version=TLSv1.3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT) for ; Sat, 13 Feb 2021 18:49:57 -0800 Received: from darkstar.fourwinds.com (jon@localhost) by darkstar.fourwinds.com (8.15.2/8.15.2/Submit) with ESMTP id 11E2nq3d2519142 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 2021 18:49:57 -0800 Message-Id: <202102140249.11E2nq3d2519142@darkstar.fourwinds.com> From: Jon Steinhart To: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list In-reply-to: References: <20210124183653.GD21030@mcvoy.com> <202101242045.10OKjDvA964774@darkstar.fourwinds.com> Comments: In-reply-to "Greg A. Woods" message dated "Sat, 13 Feb 2021 18:04:32 -0800." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <2519140.1613270987.1@darkstar.fourwinds.com> Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2021 18:49:47 -0800 X-JON-SPAM: local delivery Subject: Re: [TUHS] tangential unix question: whatever happened to NeWS? X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" Greg A. Woods writes: > > At Sun, 24 Jan 2021 12:45:13 -0800, Jon Steinhart wrote: > > > > To the best of my knowledge, NeWS was the first window system to provide > > device-independent graphics. You could just do things without having > > to mess around with counting pixels and figuring out what sort of color > > system was behind things. > > I'm not so sure about that. > > There was Project JADE from University of Calgary: > > http://hdl.handle.net/1880/46070 > > I rarely see it mentioned, yet it was in my experience quite far ahead > of its time in all aspects of distributed computing, complete with a > nice GUI able to run on generic bit-mapped display workstations and > using Unix servers. The lack of knowledge about it dismays me somewhat > because I knew the guys who created it -- they were grad students at the > time I was an undergrad at UofC. > > Now interestingly enough James Gosling would likely have known all about > this, since he kept ties with UofC for quite some time, and in the same > timeframe. I remember sitting beside him in a terminal room at UofC > near xmas time in about 1980 or 1981 while he upgraded the version of > Gosmacs we used on the main undergrad 11/780. That was about the time > that Project JADE was beginning too. > > I don't know too much about the history of NeWS, except I didn't see > even a hint of it until long after JADE was already long in the tooth. Thanks, I had forgotten about that. The question of device independent graphics is a hard one. Device independent graphics had been around for a long time in terms of various display list processors that got mangled into things like CORE, GKS, and PHIGS. But just because, for example, Sun provided a GKS package on top of SunView didn't make SunView device independent. You're probably correct that NeWS was not the first window system to support device independent graphics. I do believe that it was the first one to be "ubiquitous" in that the window system itself used the same graphics as was available to the user. Doesn't that document just scream "troff" at you? Jon