[TUHS] Re: Where/when did TUIs come from

[TUHS] Re: Where/when did TUIs come from

[Henry Bent]

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On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 14:14, Adam Koszek <adam@koszek.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I got interested in UI design and often study some historical aspects of
> it as I work on software. It’s hard not to notice how fast/usable Text User
> Interfaces are—ncurses and its siblings are still alive and well. From the
> ergonomy point of view, not needing a mouse in those interfaces if perfect.
>
> Question: where did TUIs come from originally, and what were their
> earliest instances?
>
> Many pages state that Vi was the first, but I’ve been looking through some
> old hardware photos, and things capable of more sophisticated interactions
> existed before Vi:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen
>
> Some terminals with block display:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270
>
> ^ ’71. Wiki says Vi showed up in ’76, but I suspect IBM mainframes may
> have had TUIs before.
>
> Question 2: were there any manuals talking about TUIs? I’m thinking some
> of those spiffy IBM things mandating certain design.
>

Does this count?  I was just looking at it the other day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Editing_System

I have a feeling we're going to get away from UNIX pretty quickly here.

-Henry

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[TUHS] Re: Where/when did TUIs come from

[Rik Farrow]

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ECMA 48 was first published in 1976 as a standard for terminal escape
sequences. This could be in support of any multiuser system, not just IBM
or UNIX.

Rik

On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 11:39 AM Adam Koszek <adam@koszek.com> wrote:

> I think it counts! I was suspecting TUIs were either an IBM thing or UNIX
> thing—not sure if it’s < 1970 direction or > 1970 direction. In UNIX,
> someone must have added code for the cursor addressing for CRT screens b/c
> on printer terminals moving back a page … wasn’t possible?
>
> Adam
>
> On Jun 9, 2025, at 11:21 AM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 14:14, Adam Koszek <adam@koszek.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I got interested in UI design and often study some historical aspects of
>> it as I work on software. It’s hard not to notice how fast/usable Text User
>> Interfaces are—ncurses and its siblings are still alive and well. From the
>> ergonomy point of view, not needing a mouse in those interfaces if perfect.
>>
>> Question: where did TUIs come from originally, and what were their
>> earliest instances?
>>
>> Many pages state that Vi was the first, but I’ve been looking through
>> some old hardware photos, and things capable of more sophisticated
>> interactions existed before Vi:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen
>>
>> Some terminals with block display:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270
>>
>> ^ ’71. Wiki says Vi showed up in ’76, but I suspect IBM mainframes may
>> have had TUIs before.
>>
>> Question 2: were there any manuals talking about TUIs? I’m thinking some
>> of those spiffy IBM things mandating certain design.
>>
>
> Does this count?  I was just looking at it the other day.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Editing_System
>
> I have a feeling we're going to get away from UNIX pretty quickly here.
>
> -Henry
>
>
>

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[TUHS] Re: screen editors, Where/when did TUIs come from

[arnold]

> John Levine wrote:
> > At Yale we had one called "e" that ran on our early bitmap terminals.

Wasn't this related (somehow) to what was called the RAND editor?

I remember using "e" on IS/1, a V6 derivative on the PDP-11, in
the 1980-81 time frame.  I don't know if it was hardwired for a
particular terminal or not. The ones we had at my school had some
smarts in them, you could do simple bitmap graphics. Someone wrote
a "Space Invaders" game for them.  I don't remember what brand they
were.

Arnold

[TUHS] Re: Yale and RAND editors

[Jonathan Gray]

On Tue, Jun 17, 2025 at 12:48:19PM +0000, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
> John Levine wrote:
> > At Yale we had one called "e" that ran on our early bitmap terminals.
> 
> The GEM display system, in case anyone is curious.  Here's a description:
> https://engineering.yale.edu/application/files/3917/3714/8796/tr163.pdf
> 
> Unrelated to DR's GEM desktop.

https://engineering.yale.edu/application/files/2117/3714/8646/TR19_The_Yale_Editor_E_a_CRT-Based_Text_Editing_System_Preliminary_Version.pdf

references an IDA CDC6600 editor
Edgar T. Irons, Frans M. Djorup
A CRT Editing System
https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/361237.361244

> 
> > It was based on Ned Irons' PDP-10 screen editor that ran on Omron glass ttys,
> > and was a cousin of INed which Walt Bilofsky wrote for Interactive Systems.
> 
> I'm curious if any listing or simliar may have survived for these?

Walter Bilofsky
The CRT Text Editor NED - Introduction and Reference Manual
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA049314.pdf

has a page on the history of associated editors.

tuhs Applications/Usenix_77/ug091377.tar.gz
2/rand/re/

/* file re.c - main program for RAND editor */

tuhs Applications/Shoppa_Tapes/usenix_80_delaware.tar.gz
delaware/maryland/rand/re/
delaware/maryland/rand/redoc/

/* file ned.c - main program for new RAND editor */
/*   Walt Bilofsky - 14 January 1977 */