On Thu, Jan 26, 2023 at 10:58 AM Paul Ruizendaal <pnr@planet.nl> wrote:

As a result of the recent discussion on this list I’m trying to understand the timeline of graphical computing on Unix, first of all in my preferred time slot ’75 -’85.

When it comes to Bell Labs I’m aware of the following:

- around 1975 the Labs worked on the Glance-G vector graphics terminal. This was TSS-516 based with no Unix overlap I think.
- around the same time the Labs seem to have used the 1973 Dec VT11 vector graphics terminal; at least the surviving LSX Unix source has a driver for it
- in 1976 there was the Terak 8510; this ran primarily USCD pascal, but it also ran LSX and/or MX (but maybe only much later)

In the famous picture of Ken and Dennis you see a Tek display connected to the 11/20.

Simply during that time there were a number of graphics systems from the DVST (storage tubes) like Tek 4014 to Raster Systems like the GDPs we had at CMU. There really are too many to list.

- then it seems to jump 1981 and to the Blit.
- in 1984 there was MGR that was done at Bellcore

Outside of the labs (but on Unix), I have:

- I am not sure what graphics software ran on the SUN-1, but it must have been something

Again - W was the windowing system for the Sun board, running on the V kernel. It was original envisioned as a very smart terminal to bigger systems. Remember it did not have an MMU to start with. Andy added and MMU and then eventually changed it to a 68010. VLSI Tech was born and eventual became Sun Micro Systems but that was a few years later. I have to believe W as moved to UNIX on the SUN Terminal and that would have been what Chris Kent and folks started with for the microVax - but I do not know for sure.

- Clem just mentioned the 1981 Tektronix Magnolia system

1979/1980 actually -- Roger and I started that in summer of '79 and he wrote that a year later when we go Tek money. It was originall as 'g-job' we were building for ourselves. Our boss saw what were were doing and Roger got $10K to do a proposal -- that document was the result.

I already had the basics of a compiler working by them (well sort of) and the beginning of a Unix port on the test board. Jon Steinhart may be remember some of this as they all visited us in the labs to see what we were doing.

- Wikipedia says that X1 was 1984 and X11 was 1987; I’m not sure when it became Unix centered
- Sun’s NeWS arrived only in 1989, I think?

Outside of Unix, in the microcomputer world there was a lot of cheap(er) graphics hardware. Lot’s of stuff at 256 x 192 resolution, but up to 512 x 512 at the higher end. John Walker writes that the breakout product for Autodesk was Interact (the precursor to AutoCAD). Initially developed for S-100 bus systems it quickly moved to the PC. There was a lot of demand for CAD at a 5K price point that did not exist at a 50K price point.

Not completely true... 1-4K for BW was possible (expensive) but available. I tend to believe that systems like E&S could do that. Many raster systems went to 1K -- again is was about cost. I've forgotten the resolution of the GDP2 but is was much higher -- it used a rather expensive HP display. The price of memory and price of the monitor tneded to dominate. Also the processor was not cheap -- a GDP2 had a dedicated PDP-11/20, but that was also try of things like GT40 and the similar systems of the time.