On Jan 27, 2023, at 1:19 AM, Paul Ruizendaal <pnr@planet.nl> wrote:

The version of X discussed in the paper was apparently part of the 4.3BSD distribution tapes:

"The use of X has grown far beyond anything we had imagined. Digital has incorporated X into a commercial product, and other manufacturers are following suit. With the appearance of such products and the release of complete X sources on the Berkeley 4.3 UNIX distribution tapes, it is no longer feasible to track all X use and development.”


This X is not on the TUHS Unix tree website, nor on the CSRG disks. It turns out that there is a directory “src/new” that is not included there. It is here:

http://www.retro11.de/ouxr/43bsd/usr/src/new/

The version of X included with 4.3BSD was X10. I assume this is the oldest surviving X Window source code.

Of course the source code for the Blit has survived, as has the source code of MGR. The source code for Sunwindows and NeWS is presumably lost?