27 Jan
2023
27 Jan
'23
4:17 a.m.
On 26 Jan 2023, at 17:29, Clem Cole
<clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
I meant early micro/home computers. I think John Walker was comparing the typical late
70’s CAD (drawing) system, i.e a mini computer, a few graphics terminals and CAD software
versus Interact running on a S-100 system with a high end graphics card, a digitiser board
and a terminal. See for instance here:
https://www.3dcadworld.com/autocads-ancestor/
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. - 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.
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2023 09:51:59 -0700
From: Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com>
- I am not sure what graphics software ran on the
SUN-1, but it must have been something
If this is the sun microsystem sun-1, the leaked sources online suggest that these
initially ran a V7 port by Unisoft. This switched to a 4.2BSD port maybe before it went to
customers as SunOS 1.0 if other leaked sources can be believed. Bakul Shah bakul at iitbombay.org
Fri Jan 27 05:39:30 AEST 2023
I wonder if this mythical w is the same as V's VGTS as it seems to have
pretty much the same model.
From https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/357332.357334
That is an interesting thought and paper.
The paper says:
"As noted in Section 3, the VGTS is only one component of the user interface
software. The other components are the view manager, the exec server, and the executives.
Together, the view manager and exec server constitute the user interface management.”
In this context an “executive” seems to be similar to a shell, the exec server appears to
manage client connections and the view manager seems to be similar to a window manager in
X. Maybe this whole was (later?) referred to as “W”?
This was the post announcing X:
From: rws@mit-bold (Robert W. Scheifler)
To: window@athena
Subject: window system X
Date: 19 Jun 1984 0907-EDT (Tuesday)
I've spent the last couple weeks writing a window
system for the VS100. I stole a fair amount of code
from W, surrounded it with an asynchronous rather
than a synchronous interface, and called it X. Overall
performance appears to be about twice that of W. The
code seems fairly solid at this point, although there are
still some deficiencies to be fixed up.
We at LCS have stopped using W, and are now
actively building applications on X. Anyone else using
W should seriously consider switching. This is not the
ultimate window system, but I believe it is a good
starting point for experimentation. Right at the moment
there is a CLU (and an Argus) interface to X; a C
interface is in the works. The three existing
applications are a text editor (TED), an Argus I/O
interface, and a primitive window manager. There is
no documentation yet; anyone crazy enough to
volunteer? I may get around to it eventually.
Anyone interested in seeing a demo can drop by
NE43-531, although you may want to call 3-1945
first. Anyone who wants the code can come by with a
tape. Anyone interested in hacking deficiencies, feel
free to get in touch.