Blit even had some capabilities for terminal side software so that it wasn't entirely "dumb terminal" [1]. After logging in the host was able to upload some code that would run on the terminal during the session, but would be gone after power cycle. In a sense one could compare it to a web browser of today.
Blit: a multitasking, windowed Unix GUI from 1982
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Re: Blit: a multitasking, windowed Unix GUI from 1982
#42God , here we go again. Yet another example of companies stealing from Apple. This is clearly similar enough to the Macintosh (1984) that I'm surprised Apple didn't sue the hell out of AT&T. They certainly sued the hell out of Microsoft[1], so AT&T must have been lucky. Around the same time, Myron Krueger had the gall to demonstrate pinch-to-zoom[2], nearly 23 years before Apple patented it. So many people piggy-back…
I'm surprised AT&T didn't sue the hell out of apple because BLIT is clearly older than the Macintosh.
BLIT is actually from 1982 as is shown in the video at 3:50 and in the copyright notice some seconds later.
The wikipedia article also claims it's 1882.
Re: Blit: a multitasking, windowed Unix GUI from 1982
#43God , here we go again. Yet another example of companies stealing from Apple. This is clearly similar enough to the Macintosh (1984) that I'm surprised Apple didn't sue the hell out of AT&T. They certainly sued the hell out of Microsoft[1], so AT&T must have been lucky. Around the same time, Myron Krueger had the gall to demonstrate pinch-to-zoom[2], nearly 23 years before Apple patented it. So many people piggy-back…
The pinch to zoom patent is for single vs multitouch gestures on a touch screen. What Krueger is demonstrating is not a touch screen.
Re: Blit: a multitasking, windowed Unix GUI from 1982
#44Ah, early GUIs. For comparison, take a look at Xerox' Cedar and Smalltalk, or Wirth's Lillith and Oberon, all from pretty much the same era. The Lilith systems are often overlooked. They predate the Blit, are programmed in Modula-2, translated to bytecode. Oberon is a bit more well-known, but still not as much as both the language and the OS deserve. Lilith demo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob0lznzkykc Some…
If you want more modern early GUIs investigate Plan 9, also by Rob Pike. Rio is like Blit and ACME is like Oberon.
It is creepy how much that looks like 8 1/2 and rio. Pike clearly thought he had a good thing.
Re: Blit: a multitasking, windowed Unix GUI from 1982
#45"Unix compilers are slow. So to entertain myself while I'm waiting, I can play asteroids! You see? Compiler errors print out even while asteroids is running!" (2:05) This was pretty revolutionary at the time, but for some reason those lines made me crack up. Also: "Is graphics good for anything other than playing games?" (2:19) The question sounded sort of facetious then as it does now, but for different reasons.
I love that line about playing asteroids. I was also entertained by the line towards the end of video: "I've always been able to think about multiple things at once but the terminal held me back." It seems like we all very much doubt that was ever true now.
If in your last line you mean "Everyone works in terminal emulators all the time", that's not what he was going for. The intent of the statement you quote was that previous terminal hardware, such as the VT-100, gives you access to exactly one program at a time. GNU Screen was not to be invented until 1987, and I have not heard of any earlier terminal multiplexer.
Re: Blit: a multitasking, windowed Unix GUI from 1982
#46God , here we go again. Yet another example of companies stealing from Apple. This is clearly similar enough to the Macintosh (1984) that I'm surprised Apple didn't sue the hell out of AT&T. They certainly sued the hell out of Microsoft[1], so AT&T must have been lucky. Around the same time, Myron Krueger had the gall to demonstrate pinch-to-zoom[2], nearly 23 years before Apple patented it. So many people piggy-back…
The pinch to zoom patent is for single vs multitouch gestures on a touch screen. What Krueger is demonstrating is not a touch screen.
Does anybody else see why such patents are curbing innovation? I mean, the whole difference is a moot point.
Re: Blit: a multitasking, windowed Unix GUI from 1982
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, elinks handles more websites and renders closer to a graphical browser but w3m uses vim keys.
Well, if you're not that tied to terminal apps, there's always xombrero, jumanji, dwb or luakit. (Rob Pike himself is pretty proud that he never wrote a program with cursor addressing, there are definitely differences between modern Linux "minimalist" and proper 9fans) https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero http://pwmt.org/projects/jumanji/ http://portix.bitbucket.org/dwb/ http://mason-larobina.github.com/lua…
Also worth mentioning, surf: http://surf.suckless.org/
Re: Blit: a multitasking, windowed Unix GUI from 1982
#48Ah, the AT&T 3B2. I learned heavy-duty assembly language programming on the WE32000, that was a really nice processor. Shame it never took off in the era of 80286 and 68000...
Perhaps time has fogged your memory :-) That was a horrible processor. :-)
Heh, maybe you're right. It was the first true 32-bit iron I got to use (halfword address exceptions! woo!), and it also had strcpy() built into a single opcode. I thought that was pretty cool...for 1986....
Re: Blit: a multitasking, windowed Unix GUI from 1982
#49..... but we are hackers and we like green fonts on black terminals.
Re: Blit: a multitasking, windowed Unix GUI from 1982
#50Ah, early GUIs. For comparison, take a look at Xerox' Cedar and Smalltalk, or Wirth's Lillith and Oberon, all from pretty much the same era. The Lilith systems are often overlooked. They predate the Blit, are programmed in Modula-2, translated to bytecode. Oberon is a bit more well-known, but still not as much as both the language and the OS deserve. Lilith demo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob0lznzkykc Some…
Oh man, I remember Modula-2. It was what my engineering course taught us to code in. That was handy on my CV.