AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS - TUHS

Wilko Bulte

14 Oct 14 Oct

4:32 p.m.

We had a couple of those at work (Philips Information Systems) in the late 80s. They have long been scrapped I'd imagine.. 😳 Wilko On 14 okt. 2012, at 11:58, Wesley Parish <wes.parish(a)paradise.net.nz> wrote:

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I had a look at OSNews.com and found a story about a nifty little terminal and its OS called Blit. http://www.osnews.com/story/26315/Blit_a_multitasking_windowed_UNIX_GUI_fro… I suspect getting hold of it would be like getting blood from a stone, much like getting the Research Unix source trees ... but still it would be interesting to look at if at all possible. Wesley Parish _______________________________________________ TUHS mailing list TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

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arnold＠skeeve.com

4:54 p.m.

OK: Here is where I got stuff from: http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/att/5620/ Enjoy, Arnold ------------------------------- arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote:

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The code for the 630 (a followon to the blit) was GPL2'ed at some point and I have it, although I don't remember where I got it. I will try to send it to Warren for addition to the archives. I used a 5620 for a while, hooked up to a BSD 4.1 Vax. The vax was overloaded so things were slow, but it was a relatively pleasant environment. The keyboard was really nice, and there are still people who pine for the 3-button round Depraz (sp?) mouse... :-) I wonder if you couldn't find some of these still on eBay or something. Arnold --------------- Wilko Bulte <wkb(a)xs4all.nl> wrote:

We had a couple of those at work (Philips Information Systems) in the late 80s. They have long been scrapped I'd imagine.. ␦ Wilko On 14 okt. 2012, at 11:58, Wesley Parish <wes.parish(a)paradise.net.nz> wrote:

I had a look at OSNews.com and found a story about a nifty little terminal and its OS called Blit. http://www.osnews.com/story/26315/Blit_a_multitasking_windowed_UNIX_GUI_fro… I suspect getting hold of it would be like getting blood from a stone, much like getting the Research Unix source trees ... but still it would be interesting to look at if at all possible. Wesley Parish _______________________________________________ TUHS mailing list TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

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Brantley Coile

12:47 a.m.

Like a lady bug with no spots. I have a 730 in my office. iPhone email On Oct 14, 2012, at 11:18 AM, "Brian Zick" <artistenator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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I used a 5620 for a while, hooked up to a BSD 4.1 Vax. The vax was overloaded so things were slow, but it was a relatively pleasant environment. The keyboard was really nice, and there are still people who pine for the 3-button round Depraz (sp?) mouse... :-)

What does a Blit 3-button round Depraz mouse look like? I've searched, but alas I have not found. Brian Zick zickzickzick.com _______________________________________________ TUHS mailing list TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

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scj＠yaccman.com

5 a.m.

This brings back fond memories. Applications running on the main computer downloaded custom code to run on the Blit--this was the biggest challenge--writing an application to run on two machines at once, with two different OS's, different hardware and different endian-ness. When it was working, it was great, but debugging new code could be a real challenge. Steve

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Like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/87479714@N05/8087576305/ That one has the Bell Labs USB modification, and works like a charm under Windows 7! :) -Ben ________________________________________ From: tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org [tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org] on behalf of Brantley Coile [brantley(a)coraid.com] Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 11:47 AM To: Brian Zick Cc: tuhs(a)tuhs.org; arnold(a)skeeve.com Subject: Re: [TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS Like a lady bug with no spots. I have a 730 in my office. iPhone email On Oct 14, 2012, at 11:18 AM, "Brian Zick" <artistenator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I used a 5620 for a while, hooked up to a BSD 4.1 Vax. The vax was overloaded so things were slow, but it was a relatively pleasant environment. The keyboard was really nice, and there are still people who pine for the 3-button round Depraz (sp?) mouse... :-)

What does a Blit 3-button round Depraz mouse look like? I've searched, but alas I have not found. Brian Zick zickzickzick.com _______________________________________________ TUHS mailing list TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

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Gregg Levine

7:08 a.m.

On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 8:24 PM, Larry McVoy <lm(a)bitmover.com> wrote:

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My fond memories, if my old brain doesn't fail me, is being a TA at the University of Wisconsin. I shared an office with another TA, we had one BLIT but I managed to scrounge another one. We had a serial line that ran from our building to the building that had all the vaxen, just one. So I bread boarded some 8051's (I think that's them, they were 8 bit computers that you could flash). What I noticed was that all the stuff we did was 8 bit clean, only used the lower 7. So, 8th bit was the mux. On was me, off was my office mate. I programmed the 8051's and convinced the lab (run by Paul Beebe, he still around? Wouldn't be surprised if he's on the list) to let me stick one in there, the other in our office, presto! Two BLITs and two extremely happy TA's. I *loved* the BLIT, it was pretty much everything I wanted from a terminal, it was like the NCD Xterminal only a decade or two sooner. And kind of more cool because it worked over a serial line. --lm P.S. Pretty cool that I'm responding to the guy who wrote yacc. Thanks for that, I've gotten a lot done with lex/yacc over the years. As have countless other people. Might be interesting to hear your storie about what people have done with yacc - has anyone ever added up how many yacc grammers there are out there? On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 04:00:53PM -0700, scj(a)yaccman.com wrote:

This brings back fond memories. Applications running on the main computer downloaded custom code to run on the Blit--this was the biggest challenge--writing an application to run on two machines at once, with two different OS's, different hardware and different endian-ness. When it was working, it was great, but debugging new code could be a real challenge. Steve

Like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/87479714@N05/8087576305/ That one has the Bell Labs USB modification, and works like a charm under Windows 7! :) -Ben ________________________________________ From: tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org [tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org] on behalf of Brantley Coile [brantley(a)coraid.com] Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 11:47 AM To: Brian Zick Cc: tuhs(a)tuhs.org; arnold(a)skeeve.com Subject: Re: [TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS Like a lady bug with no spots. I have a 730 in my office. iPhone email On Oct 14, 2012, at 11:18 AM, "Brian Zick" <artistenator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> I used a 5620 for a while, hooked up to a BSD 4.1 Vax. The vax was > overloaded > so things were slow, but it was a relatively pleasant environment. The > keyboard > was really nice, and there are still people who pine for the 3-button > round > Depraz (sp?) mouse... :-) What does a Blit 3-button round Depraz mouse look like? I've searched, but alas I have not found. Brian Zick zickzickzick.com _______________________________________________ TUHS mailing list TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

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-- --- Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitkeeper.com _______________________________________________ TUHS mailing list TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

Hello! Great government! I saw one of those and a 3B at the Vintage Computer Festival last May. The terminal worked fine, the computer kept telling the two people to go ******** themselves. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8(a)gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

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Brian Zick

5:14 a.m.

That DOES look like a ladybug without any spots. I've been using one of those "magic" mouses from Apple. I've been fine with it but others can hardly seem to use it without swearing. Of course I had to set it up for three buttons, but they are "invisible". I do wish it came in a corded version. Brian Zick zickzickzick.com On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 4:21 PM, Benjamin Huntsman <BHuntsman(a)mail2.cu-portland.edu> wrote:

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Like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/87479714@N05/8087576305/ That one has the Bell Labs USB modification, and works like a charm under Windows 7! :) -Ben ________________________________________ From: tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org [tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org] on behalf of Brantley Coile [brantley(a)coraid.com] Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 11:47 AM To: Brian Zick Cc: tuhs(a)tuhs.org; arnold(a)skeeve.com Subject: Re: [TUHS] AT&T Blit terminal plus terminal OS Like a lady bug with no spots. I have a 730 in my office. iPhone email On Oct 14, 2012, at 11:18 AM, "Brian Zick" <artistenator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I used a 5620 for a while, hooked up to a BSD 4.1 Vax. The vax was overloaded so things were slow, but it was a relatively pleasant environment. The keyboard was really nice, and there are still people who pine for the 3-button round Depraz (sp?) mouse... :-)

What does a Blit 3-button round Depraz mouse look like? I've searched, but alas I have not found. Brian Zick zickzickzick.com _______________________________________________ TUHS mailing list TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

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Pierre DAVID

12:46 p.m.

New subject: AT&T video : the UNIX system (1982)

On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 10:58:11PM +1300, Wesley Parish wrote:

...

I had a look at OSNews.com and found a story about a nifty little terminal and its OS called Blit. http://www.osnews.com/story/26315/ Blit_a_multitasking_windowed_UNIX_GUI_from_1982 I suspect getting hold of it would be like getting blood from a stone, much like getting the Research Unix source trees ... but still it would be interesting to look at if at all possible.

On the same AT&T archive site, nobody mentionned: http://techchannel.att.com/play-video.cfm/2012/2/22/AT&T-Archives-The-U… Extract from the presentation: This film "The UNIX System: Making Computers More Productive", is one of two that Bell Labs made in 1982 about UNIX's significance, impact and usability. Even 10 years after its first installation, it's still an introduction to the system. The other film, "The UNIX System: Making Computers Easier to Use", is roughly the same, only a little shorter. The former film was geared towards software developers and computer science students, the latter towards programmers specifically. The film contains interviews with primary developers Ritchie, Thompson, Brian Kernighan, and many others. This film is a "must see" for all tuhs-icians, Pierre

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