[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Michael Kerpan]

The recent FOSS release of CDE has got me thinking of other Unix GUIs
from the "golden age" of workstation Unix. Obviously, stuff like
SunView and OpenWindows from Sun and 4DWM/Indigo Desktop from SGI are
pretty well known, but I've always wondered what else was out there.So
far, I've come across Looking Glass, DECWindows and HP VUE. Is there
anything else of any importance/interest out there?

Mike

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Pat Barron]

On 8/19/2012 10:40 PM, Michael Kerpan wrote:
> The recent FOSS release of CDE has got me thinking of other Unix GUIs
> from the "golden age" of workstation Unix. Obviously, stuff like
> SunView and OpenWindows from Sun and 4DWM/Indigo Desktop from SGI are
> pretty well known, but I've always wondered what else was out there.So
> far, I've come across Looking Glass, DECWindows and HP VUE. Is there
> anything else of any importance/interest out there?
>

It was never commercial, but there was Virtue (later known as the Andrew 
Toolkit, and even later than that known as the Andrew User Interface 
System) - the windowing system developed at Carnegie Mellon University 
as part of the Andrew Project (an early campus-wide workstation 
computing initiative).  It started out as a completely self-contained 
user interface system, but (much) later was changed to use X11 to drive 
the workstation's display (in the early days of the Andrew Project, 
there was no X Window System....).

http://www.cmu.edu/corporate/news/2007/features/andrew/index.shtml

I still fondly recall using Andrew workstations (my favorites were the 
Sun-2's... :-) ) when I was working at CMU.

You could probably still find the older Virtue code if you look. Getting 
it to build on anything anymore - that's probably a more difficult 
problem.  ;-)

--Pat.

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Larry McVoy]

I deleted all the code I wrote at Sun but there was a great toolkit, 
I want to say xview?  Can't remember the name right now but it was
a really pleasant API, it was

interface(key, val, key, val, key, val, ... END);

and all interfaces took that and all had sensible defaults.  So you passed
in stuff to change the defaults.

I wrote a bunch of GUI tools for what was the system before BitKeeper in
that toolkit.  As a non-gui person, I found it really pleasant.

On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 10:40:12PM -0400, Michael Kerpan wrote:
> The recent FOSS release of CDE has got me thinking of other Unix GUIs
> from the "golden age" of workstation Unix. Obviously, stuff like
> SunView and OpenWindows from Sun and 4DWM/Indigo Desktop from SGI are
> pretty well known, but I've always wondered what else was out there.So
> far, I've come across Looking Glass, DECWindows and HP VUE. Is there
> anything else of any importance/interest out there?
> 
> Mike
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Larry McVoy]

> It was never commercial, but there was Virtue (later known as the
> Andrew Toolkit, and even later than that known as the Andrew User
> Interface System) - the windowing system developed at Carnegie
> Mellon University as part of the Andrew Project (an early
> campus-wide workstation computing initiative).  

CMU did some good stuff.  At least they had the oompf to build stuff and
try it.  Most places just bitched about how bad things were.  CMU tried
to build their own good answer. 

I came from Wisconsin and in the same time frame Wisconsin was really busy
hacking the kernel, a lot of the core kernel people at Sun came from
Wisconsin.  I watched Mojo (Joe Moran) port BSD to a 68K in about 36 hours.
Didn't know what or who I was watching at the time but he went on to do
the SunOS 4.x VM system, which to this day is what people copy.  I had a
lot of very detailed conversations with Linus about that VM system, there
is a lot of Mojo in Linux.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy                lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitkeeper.com

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Aaron J. Grier]

On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 10:40:12PM -0400, Michael Kerpan wrote:
> I've always wondered what else was out there. So far, I've come across
> Looking Glass, DECWindows and HP VUE.

I thought DECWindows was a motif variant?

> Is there anything else of any importance/interest out there?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS ?

-- 
  Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." | agrier at poofygoof.com

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Tim Bradshaw]

On 11 Sep 2012, at 07:58, Aaron J. Grier wrote:

> I thought DECWindows was a motif variant?

I have some memory of using something that, I think, was called DECWindows in 1988/1989, which I think was before Motif?  There may of course have been several things called DECWindows (this one was on VMS, not Unix: may be they called different things on different platforms the same name).

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Pierre DAVID]

Hi,

Am I the only one who have used HP-Windows on HP-UX computers (circa
1985-1986) ?

Apparently, Google does not remember this windowing system and its
associated programs (Memomaker for text editing, PAM as the file
manager, and so on).

Pierre

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Jeremy C. Reed]

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012, Pierre DAVID wrote:

> Am I the only one who have used HP-Windows on HP-UX computers (circa
> 1985-1986) ?
> 
> Apparently, Google does not remember this windowing system and its
> associated programs (Memomaker for text editing, PAM as the file
> manager, and so on).

I don't remember any HP-Windows, but I do remember learning UCSD Pascal 
around 1985-1986 on HP RISC-based (I think) workstations. I learned to 
control plotters over RS-232. I used Memomaker and PAM on HP 110 laptops 
(with amazing battery life). The first software I ever sold was my clone 
of PAM written in Turbo Pascal to provide a user interface (file manager 
and application menu) for generic MS-DOS.  I don't think PAM was ever 
for HPUX, but maybe.

http://www.hpmuseum.net/  knows about Memomaker.

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Ronald Natalie]

Amusingly the hardware between the 9000 and 3000 line are the same.   The 9000's were marketed with HP/UX.
The 3000's ran MPE (or as we called it Mighty Poor Excuse).    I had an HP/UX machine back when I was consulting
with Unipress back in 87 or so (and then we did a lot with them in my later job when the newer systems came out).
But I'm trying to remember a pre-X windowing system and can't think of it.   The later HP/UX had an their own proprietary
Motif-based window manager.

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Pierre DAVID]

On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 08:40:35AM -0400, Ronald Natalie wrote:
>
> Amusingly the hardware between the 9000 and 3000 line are the same.   The 9000's were marketed with HP/UX.
> The 3000's ran MPE (or as we called it Mighty Poor Excuse).    I had an HP/UX machine back when I was consulting
>

The hardware was the same only for PA-RISC based machines (i.e.
HP-9000 800 series and later, not the 200/300/400 series based on
the Motorola 68k nor the older 500 series based on a proprietary
processor).

> with Unipress back in 87 or so (and then we did a lot with them in my later job when the newer systems came out).
> But I'm trying to remember a pre-X windowing system and can't think of it.   The later HP/UX had an their own proprietary
> Motif-based window manager.
> 

If I remember correctly, the switch from HP-Windows to X-Window on
HP 9000/300 and /800 series (X10, not X11 at this time) occurred
around 1987 or 1988.

Pierre

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Aaron J. Grier]

On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 09:03:11AM +0100, Tim Bradshaw wrote:
> On 11 Sep 2012, at 07:58, Aaron J. Grier wrote:
> 
> > I thought DECWindows was a motif variant?
> 
> I have some memory of using something that, I think, was called
> DECWindows in 1988/1989, which I think was before Motif?  There may of
> course have been several things called DECWindows (this one was on
> VMS, not Unix: may be they called different things on different
> platforms the same name).

my first exposure to DECWindows was under Ultrix on the MIPS-based
DECStations in the 1992 time-frame.

-- 
  Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." | agrier at poofygoof.com

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Tim Bradshaw wrote:
> Aaron J. Grier wrote:
> > I thought DECWindows was a motif variant?
> I have some memory of using something that, I think, was called
> DECWindows in 1988/1989, which I think was before Motif?

According to this:
http://michaelgood.info/publications/usability/user-interface-consistency-in-the-decwindows-program/
DECwindows was announced in January 1987.

According to this:
http://www.rahul.net/kenton/faqs/Motif-FAQ
Motif was developed around 1989.

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[arnold]

I believe that the original Sun Windowing system also predated widespread
use of X Windows.

Larry?

Thanks,

Arnold

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Armando Stettner]

Yes, Sun Windows did predate wide-spread use of X Windows.  I'm not sure that it predates X Windows' existence (or that of its predecessor from Stanford).  Jim Gettys?

I do remember Scott McNeily (spelling) saying that Sun would adopt X as its window system over "over my dead body.".  :)

   aps

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 12, 2012, at 6:20 AM, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:

> I believe that the original Sun Windowing system also predated widespread
> use of X Windows.
> 
> Larry?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Arnold
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> 

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Tim Bradshaw]

On 12 Sep 2012, at 11:20, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:

> I believe that the original Sun Windowing system also predated widespread
> use of X Windows.

I used this (I remember it having various names: was it originally Suntools but then later Sunview?) in 1988-89, and my wife will remember earlier history than that (she ran the first Sun in Scotland).

There was some big performance thing that happened to X: X existed by the time I used Suns, but it was just catastrophically slow - I had a 3/50 without the secret extra memory you could get and you really *had* to use Suntools on that because X was just unusable (you could quite easily understand what order things like menus got drawn in by watching).  Then, I think, X11R3 (might have been not that release but a later one) came out, and it was acceptably quick, and everyone changed except for a few holdouts.

--tim

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Ronald Natalie]

On Sep 13, 2012, at 2:58 AM, Tim Bradshaw wrote:
> I used this (I remember it having various names: was it originally Suntools but then later Sunview?) in 1988-89, and my wife will remember earlier history than that (she ran the first Sun in Scotland).

My suntools story involves the screen lock.    Essentially this was a program that placed a large window over the entire screen to keep you from messing with the windows underneath.
You could use a hot key to inconify it but you had a fraction of a second before it opened up again.     I was working in the Pentagon one day as a consultant (I was for a brief period ron at HQ.AF.MIL) and came upon a locked console.   I asked the guy I was working for if he could unlock it or did he just want me to break the lock.    He was interested in seeing how.
Iconify, find a window, Iconify, type ps quickly, Iconify, find the process id of the lock, Iconfiy K I L L Iconfiy pid Iconfigy enter ...poof.

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[asbesto]

Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 09:46:29AM -0400, William von Hagen wrote:

> Though Apollos were much more Unix-like than actual Unix, the DM
> environment (display manager?) on Apollo Aegis,  Domain/IX, and
> Domain/OS workstations was pretty interesting, most notably for the
> sophisticated interaction between the command-line and GUI. 

Today we restarted our Apollo Series 400 with Domain/OS SR10.3.5
that is perfectly working as 5 years ago, when we stored it into
our deposit... There are some pictures here:

 http://museo.freaknet.org/workstation-hp-apollo-series-400/

We are planning of putting it online for some hours in a week if
someone want to play with it...

Sorry for the italian language in our main site, we're working
on an english version (and also fixing a lot of things about the
site) so please be patient, we hope in a few days we will have
an international version!


\o/

-- 
[ ::::::::: 73 de IW9HGS : http://freaknet.org/asbesto ::::::::::: ]
[ Freaknet Medialab :: Poetry Hacklab : Dyne.Org :: Radio Cybernet ]
[ NON SCRIVERMI USANDO LETTERE ACCENTATE  -  NON MANDARMI ALLEGATI ]
[ *I DELETE* EMAIL > 100K, ATTACHMENTS, HTML, M$-WORD DOC and SPAM ]

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Berny G]

Open Look, Motif, NextStep.
Dare I say it but I also enjoyed OS/2 Workplace.

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Michael Kerpan]

Thanks for all the pointers to interesting Unix desktops of the past.
Andrew looks especially interesting, given how complete its provided
toolset was and the fact that it was open source. I wonder why it
didn't make a bigger splash in the era of early Linux and x86 BSD.

Mike

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[asbesto]

Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 09:46:29AM -0400, William von Hagen wrote:

> Though Apollos were much more Unix-like than actual Unix, the DM
> environment (display manager?) on Apollo Aegis,  Domain/IX, and
> Domain/OS workstations was pretty interesting, most notably for the
> sophisticated interaction between the command-line and GUI.

We at our "Museo dell'Informatica Funzionante" Computer Museum
had our Apollo workstation online for free, with Domain/OS up
and running :) If someone want to try using this machine we can
arrange to put it back online - we're actually settling into a
new space so most of our online historical machines are actually
offline...

more to come at http://museum.freaknet.org (including an 
english version, sorry!)

p.s. we have some manuals and Domain/OS tape dumps available!

-- 
[ ::::::::: 73 de IW9HGS : http://freaknet.org/asbesto ::::::::::: ]
[ Freaknet Medialab :: Poetry Hacklab : Dyne.Org :: Radio Cybernet ]
[ NON SCRIVERMI USANDO LETTERE ACCENTATE  -  NON MANDARMI ALLEGATI ]
[ *I DELETE* EMAIL > 100K, ATTACHMENTS, HTML, M$-WORD DOC and SPAM ]

[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Larry McVoy]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 600 bytes --]

+1 for the BLIT, I loved those.

On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 01:54:25PM -0400, ron at ronnatalie.com wrote:
> 
> While it wasn't a workstation in its own, there was always the BLiT (aka
> jerq) and the commercialization of it the AT&T 5620 DMD.   I had one
> of the latter on my desk for a while before we switched to Suns and SGIs
> at BRL.<br /><br />
> 
> 

> _______________________________________________
> 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] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[ron]

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[TUHS] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[Larry McVoy]

Ug.  I used them.  Hated them.  Best thing I ever did was port the 
C compiler from the Apollos to Sun.  Way faster.

On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 09:46:29AM -0400, William von Hagen wrote:
> Though Apollos were much more Unix-like than actual Unix, the DM
> environment (display manager?) on Apollo Aegis,  Domain/IX, and
> Domain/OS workstations was pretty interesting, most notably for the
> sophisticated interaction between the command-line and GUI. The DM was a
> lot like the Moxie carbonated beverage - you either liked it or you
> really wanted to spit it out. Apollo systems also ran various versions
> of the X Window system, but the unique stuff was in the DM.
> 
> Site such as Toastytech's GUI Timeline
> (http://toastytech.com/guis/guitimeline.html) and Typewritten Software's
> Retrotechnology Media page (http://www.typewritten.org/Media/) have many
> screen shots of old GUIs and apps, many on Unix or Unix-like systems.
> 
>   Bill
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Classic Unix workstation GUIs

[William von Hagen]

Though Apollos were much more Unix-like than actual Unix, the DM
environment (display manager?) on Apollo Aegis,  Domain/IX, and
Domain/OS workstations was pretty interesting, most notably for the
sophisticated interaction between the command-line and GUI. The DM was a
lot like the Moxie carbonated beverage - you either liked it or you
really wanted to spit it out. Apollo systems also ran various versions
of the X Window system, but the unique stuff was in the DM.

Site such as Toastytech's GUI Timeline
(http://toastytech.com/guis/guitimeline.html) and Typewritten Software's
Retrotechnology Media page (http://www.typewritten.org/Media/) have many
screen shots of old GUIs and apps, many on Unix or Unix-like systems.

  Bill