From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: dmr@plan9.bell-labs.com (Dennis Ritchie)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 00:19:41 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] re: Can someone advise me regarding a gui for UNIX
Message-ID: <90d5aca0a564f1de023fd38f32cd5dab@plan9.bell-labs.com>

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