[TUHS] Re: Earliest UNIX Workstations?

[Bakul Shah <bakul@iitbombay.org>]

The V sources on bitsavers has a w command. But don't get excited!
It seems to be similar to unix's w, a variation on the who command.

I wonder if this mythical w is the same as V's VGTS as it seems to have
pretty much the same model. From
 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/357332.357334

 The ideal interface must take into account four fundamental principles:

 (1) The interface to application programs should be independent of
     particular physical devices or intervening networks.

 (2) The user should be allowed to perform multiple tasks
     simultaneously.

 (3) The command interaction discipline should be consistent and
     natural.

 (4) Response to user interaction should be fast.

 The first principle has led to work in virtual terminals (VTs) and
 deviceindependent graphics packages, the second to work in window
 systems, and the third to work in what has recently been called user
 interface management systems, the most common examples of which are
 command languages. Without adhering to the fourth principle, however,
 much of the other work is moot. In a distributed environment, in
 particular, the supporting network protocols cannot incur inordinate
 overhead.

From concluding remarks:
 To summarize the major attributes of the VGTS:
 - Instead of describing how to draw a picture, the application
   describes what is to be drawn. The user then specifies where the
   picture should be displayed.
 - Objects have a hierarchical structure. Hence, the VGTS supports
   structured display files rather than segmented display files.
 - The VGTS is portable to a range of relatively high-performance
   devices.
 - Applications can be distributed over multiple machines.
 - A single user can access several different applications
   simultaneously.
 - It performs well!

VGTS code is in the V system sources at bitsavers.

> On Jan 26, 2023, at 10:15 AM, Lars Brinkhoff <lars@nocrew.org> wrote:
> 
> Warner Losh wrote:
>> If this is the Standford Unix Networked (?) sun, then I don't know.
> 
> Stanford University Network workstation.  I have seen some documents
> about it on stacks.stanford.edu, but I don't remember about the
> software.  In some versions, it's a more of a multi-head remote graphics
> terminal, so maybe not Unix.
> 
>> - Wikipedia says that X1 was 1984 and X11 was 1987; I’m not sure when it
>> became Unix centered
>> 
>> I believe very early. It ran first on the VS100
> 
> Note that the VAXstation 100 is not a VAX, and not a standalone
> computer.  It's a 68000-based graphics terminal that attaches to a VAX.
> The VS100 has some firmware in ROM, and the host uploads additional
> software.  There is such a software blob in X10R3.
> 
>> There was also a pointer to a blog about pictures of the W window
>> system. None exist, it seems.
> 
> I have asked Asante, Reid, and Kent.  No luck so far.