BLIT: an early Windowed Graphic Interface from Bell Labs - AT&T Archives

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The Blit (originally named the Jerq!) was an early graphical user interface, connected to a UNIX computer. Inspired by the Xerox Alto from the early 1970s, creators Rob Pike and Bart Locanthi wanted to make a graphics machine for use at Bell Labs that would have the usability of the Xerox, but with the processing power of a 1981 computer. Created using a Motorola microprocessor instead of a Bell one, the machine would be retooled for the commercial market (business market, because it was still expensive) as the AT&T 5620, which came out in 1984 - using a Western Electric WE32000 microprocessor. The Blit had a vertically-oriented display and an early mouse peripheral; this video explains how it worked.
Footage Courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ

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27 авг 2012

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Комментарии : 96

@jagardina 6 лет назад

Computers are AMAZING! So much we take for granted today. We forget that once things like this were huge innovations.

@adamsfusion 2 года назад

"Compiler errors print out even while asteroids is running!" Some things never change

@MultiPetercool 4 года назад

My Dad worked at Murray Hill. I played with one of the first Blits. Wrote my first C program in 1977 on a PDP-11. All because Walter Brown sponsored a Boy Scout Explorer post at Murray Hill. Lots of teenage boys and girls got a leg up because of Walter Brown.

@AlexanderSkobelev 10 лет назад

It's now become evident why the mouse has only 3 buttons: it was supposed to be use by the four-finger creatures.

@retropaganda8442 6 лет назад

In the early days, professionals were recommend to wear gloves to better pilot the mouse.

@charlesroberts3650 5 лет назад

Curiously, four fingered creatures are a copyright infringement on Disney trademarks. They HAVE sued and won before.

@SnoopyDoofie 5 лет назад

I'm watching this on a MacBook Pro and decided to type the command "who" in a terminal. Yep, it's still there.

@swmiller944 4 года назад

I reflexively did the same thing on linux.

@terencestewart9199 2 года назад

I just did the same thing

@ATTTechChannel 12 лет назад

Just think how that mouse hand feels about your extra finger, Mr. Nukem

@gli7utubeo 12 лет назад

I used a Blit at work for years in the 80s.

@bigmofo1122 6 лет назад

Still better than Windows 10. I play Asteroid too while compiling. Thanks Unix.

@HazeAnderson 5 лет назад

In Soviet Russia, Asteroids YOU! xD

@duszeksmsaczek6394 5 лет назад

"quarter megabyte a memory" Nokia 3310 had the same amount of memory too.

@kreuner11 Год назад

Yeah, but heres its mostly used for VRAM, it actually connects to a much bigger mainframe

@mspysu79 11 лет назад

This is a terminal, the compiling is handled by the main computer say an AT&T 3B2/400 with a WE3200 series processor. The game/graphics processing is being handled by the 68000 processor in the terminal.

@DerekWoolverton 3 года назад

I got to use a DMD 5620 in college, and it was a wonder compared to a regular terminal. Not quite as interactive as you would think though, because the refresh rate on the screen was not very high, the phosphors on the screen were long persistence. I could turn the device off, and turn off the lights, and still read the residual image on screen ten minutes later.

@LysolPionex 7 месяцев назад

Multiple terminals. Wow. Never thought about it that granularly

@kizkoool 12 лет назад

Mouse, windowed UI, menus, multitasking... that sounds a lot better than Windows 8!

@yank3970 6 лет назад

thanks for sharing AT&T Tech Channel

@NipkowDisk 5 лет назад

My Atari Mega 2 ST computer- I still have it SOMEWHERE in my house- has the (in?)famous "blitter" chip (bit-block transfer) which did speed up some graphics but IIRC you had to set something like 27 different parameters correctly to make it work! Fun.

@cowboybob7093 6 лет назад

Rob Pike and Lilian Schwartz! AT&T really had the goods back then. I suppose they do today too, it's just the industry is so much bigger now. And it stands on the shoulders of Pike and other AT&T giants. Dennis Ritchie et. al. probably saw today coming, talked about it, way before this advertisement.

@eekee6034 6 лет назад

They sold the last shreds of their research department to Nokia a few years back. Even before that, the research department had been pruned back to just short-term commercially-marketable projects. "Systems research is dead," said Rob Pike, years ago.

@andreluisgallo1982 6 лет назад

I loved this video. Thanks...

@thetedmang 5 лет назад

Amazing, where can I buy one?

@ChrisAthanas Год назад

THIS is where we get the 3 lines on the "interaction" HAND cursor!

@johneygd 7 лет назад

Whooaah,if you had such gui od programm on your pc in 1982,you were ahead of that time.

@eekee6034 6 лет назад

Try Transport Tycoon for a 1992 example of animations in moving windows. :) Orrr... there are window systems for C64 and Atari 800; even more limited hardware than the Blit! :)

@mastercontrol5000 12 лет назад

Makes me wanna use the Awesome Window Manager.

@spearPYN Год назад

Precursor to windowing systems. Macintosh came out in 84, Amiga 1000 in 85, first MS-Windows also in the same year.

@DVRC Год назад

All take from the Xerox Alto, around the 80s graphics were an hot topic. The Blit was also inspired by another machine, the PERQ. In UNIX environments there were also the Andrew Window System, SunWindows (later SunView) and SunDew (later NeWS) in those years.

@GodEmperorSuperStar Год назад

I found that in the Eight Edition UNIX source code there are device drivers for both the Jupiter Systems graphics terminals (driver sys/dev/ju.c) and the Methius Omega 400 graphics terminal (driver sys/dev/om.c). The Jupiter Systems brochures for the Jupiter 7 and Jupiter 12 say that those graphics terminals can be attached to a VAX via DMA ("DMA via bit slice LS1-11 or PDP/VAX"). The Methius Omega 400 driver code says "UNIX DR-11W DMA Interface Software". How much did those graphics terminals influence the design of the blit?

@mattislarsson 12 лет назад

It's amazing, I need it! Anyone know what the music is?

@TheRanblingjohnny 12 лет назад

Duh! That debate was settle a while ago! But yeah I have a chuckle every time I see prior art!

@jsraadt 5 лет назад

What's the music at the end?

@Nacalal 5 лет назад

Where can I get this WM for debian?

@DarthChrisB 7 лет назад

I can't believe what you can do with only 250k of RAM! The notepad of Windows 7 alone uses 10 times that amount!

@ChristopherUSSmith 6 лет назад

DarthChrisB Motorola 68000 CPUs were very powerful for their small size. Amiga and Apple Macintosh also used 68000s.

@eekee6034 6 лет назад

Win7 notepad is also utter trash! I've been stuck with it for a few months. Have you ever tried its word wrapping mode? Horrible redraw bugs and copying results in copying the appearance not the text -- newlines are inserted! This is absolute bottom-of-the-barrel amateur trash; word-wrapping display has been a solved problem since the 1980s at least! Notepad is better in Win10; better now Gates is gone. I wonder why.

@theannoyedmrfloyd3998 5 лет назад

Atari ST also uses the 68K. I have Win7 and its Notepad works just fine. What the hell did you do to yours??

@SilverSpoon_ 4 года назад

I think the SuperNES had that memory in total, 128K DRAM and 128K for graphics RAM. And look at the games it's got. You don't need that to type a text document, a 1Kb is more than ever. There are thousands and thousands of books and millions of documents that have been made with early wordprocessors that fit under 200Kb.

@SilverSpoon_ 4 года назад

@@eekee6034 please install notepad++ at least.

@chairthrower 12 лет назад

"Compiling is slow, so play Asteroids while you wait!" WHICH WILL MAKE YOUR PROGRAM COMPILE EVEN MORE SLOWLY!

@JimGardner 7 лет назад

A multi user Blit in British English means something so very different to this.

@eekee6034 6 лет назад

Speaking as a Brit, I don't think there's any word in the universe which doesn't mean something "very different" in at least one of the million local British dialects. Having said that, I do recall thinking there was something wrong with the name of the blitter chip in the Atari ST in the late 80s.

@JustCallMeBen 12 лет назад

(for the encrypted music streaming: I meant iOS doesn't supprot decryption of musicstreams. of course iOS supports basic decryption and any dev could implement it in its own app - and it would work as long as the app is running in the foreground obviously)

@duszeksmsaczek6394 6 лет назад

This shows how iOS is horribly limited UNIX compared to UNIX and this terminal from 1982. Pretty open compared to iOS.

@computereasegeorgia2456 6 лет назад

Hey know it all - iOS -IS- Unix.

@duszeksmsaczek6394 6 лет назад

I have forgot about it that without Blit there won't be iPhone.

@SouthwesternEagle 7 лет назад

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs both pulled from this, but this pulled from XEROX. XEROX invented the GUI over 42 years ago. Believe it or not, I exist because of Windows 2.0 and MS-DOS.

@eekee6034 6 лет назад

Ehh, this exaggerates the Blit's role, I think. Maybe. I'm not sure which came first, blitting procedures of the name of this terminal.

@JustCallMeBen 12 лет назад

I was talking about the timesharing of applications (aka multitasking). Android does that.

@vrcamparttechnology533 5 лет назад

cool!

@RootinrPootine 9 лет назад

Does anyone know a modern os or emulator that looks like this? monochrome style? if not make it. thanks.

@yves-170 9 лет назад

+I speak loudly and my stick is quite small. plan 9 comes close I guess.

@eekee6034 6 лет назад

+1 for Plan 9, but only if you're developing your own software for it. Modern software, including all of the www, replies on about 90 gigatons of overcomplicated junk, none of which is compatible with Plan 9. You'll want to keep a separate machine for web browsing at least. See 9front.org for a currently maintained fork of Plan 9.

@michaelditto 5 лет назад

Seth Morabito has created emulators for the 3B2 Unix machine and the 5620 terminal (commercial version of the Blit). loomcom.com/blog/

@kassie2k4 12 лет назад

that music at the end.. :p

@dBasedxnl 12 лет назад

What do you mean by time sharing? The android multitasking model is average at best.

@JustCallMeBen 12 лет назад

...timesharing is using a scheduler to rapidly switch between applications so they appear to run simultaneously (by each in term getting some CPU time). In layman's terms that is 'real multitasking'. And Android the same CFQ scheduler as used in Linux. aka the same 'multitasking model' as used any Linux system from Ubuntu desktops to the highest-end servers. It's kinda silly of you to call it 'average at best'. Android multitasking is just more powerful, no matter how you look at it.

@GeorgeLiquor 3 года назад

0:35 First known appearance of Napoleon Dynamite

@Potplanty 12 лет назад

Dat 256KB of RAM!

@GathGealaich 10 лет назад

"WHICH WILL MAKE YOUR PROGRAM COMPILE EVEN MORE SLOWLY!" The graphics runs on the terminal. Asteroids themselves are not all that computationally expensive. I guess that with a bit of ingenuity, the whole thing could actually run in the terminal. Also, this is about perception: Without asteroids: build takes 30 seconds. With asteroids: build takes 45 seconds, but feels like fifteen ("What, it's over already?"). :-)

@JustCallMeBen 12 лет назад

...which is impossible in iOS. Same with streaming music form an encrypted stream (iOS does not (yet) provide a way to do decryption. Something I couldn't miss is true DropBox syncing in the background: impossible on iOS since only iCloud synicng is allowed to run in the background. All this is happening btw without any real effect on battery life as developers are now more experienced with programming this kind of backgroundservices in an efficient way.

@JustCallMeBen 12 лет назад

However, I do agree that the ways Apple provided to circumvent the lack of true multtasking are sufficient to not make iOS completely fall behind (so it at least can let a 3th party app play a song or download a file in the background), and whether or not you as a user are bugged by the limitations, but iOS multitasking is less powerful, no matter how you look at it, and there just are some real disadvantages to this limitation.

@mrnukem 12 лет назад

The mouse hand missing a finger is kind of creepy.

@AntonRelin 11 лет назад

These layers look a lot like plan9

@Wingnut353 7 лет назад

well... it was from the same guys... bell labs. Plan 9 came much later though...

@JustCallMeBen 12 лет назад

Funny how iOS doesn't have the mutlitasking features a PC in the early 1980s had ^^

@NOOBNUT08 11 лет назад

They aren't demonstrating a PC, its just a terminal.

@moha2020able 12 лет назад

such as amagic

@ObiTrev 5 лет назад

*IT'S A UNIX SYSTEM... I KNOW THIS...*

@brianobey4368 2 года назад

the worlds first rice!

@EJubett 11 лет назад

All on one small 70 pound board...

@dBasedxnl 12 лет назад

Please list any advantages that this "true" multitasking provides. iOS multitasking is no different to any real , battery wasting , multitasking. (from a user pov)

@donsuparman 11 лет назад

Digitazing mouse...that's a word...

@Krazy1Bunny 12 лет назад

So? More Asteroids.

@Siska0Robert 12 лет назад

that's my dilemma even on today's computers...

@dBasedxnl 12 лет назад

Wow , why are so angry - nothing in comment was offensive. I have a gtab 10.1 and the multitasking is subpar to the iPad (which is subpart to webOS) . Switching applications is much easier , and it is related to what we are talking about. In android there is no way to switch apps without the app list. Nothing you said answered how is "real multitasking" better than the iOS implementation.

@rocketman221projects 9 лет назад

I would take one of these over the crap microsoft makes any day.

@duszeksmsaczek6394 6 лет назад

No. Actually nothing is perfect and everything has its pros and cons.

@livesimplyandhumbly 6 лет назад

Someone fix windows please.

@JustCallMeBen 12 лет назад

iOS is no true mutlitasking, so there is no need for your quotationmakrs: if you let something 'run' in the background (like playing a song in a 3th aprty music app or downloading a file), the app actually isn't running: it's a module of iOS doing the work it's told to do by the app. This means developers are limited to the modules Apple creates for them. A small example: When you get a Whatsapp notification in Android, you can choose to get a popup screen to view and reply to that message...

@dBasedxnl 12 лет назад

Neither does android or windows phone or bb. Because using windows on a mobile computer is a bad idea.

@neatlife8049 3 года назад

this operating system looks more advanced than mac os 11 or windows 10

@hey_buddy_waz_up 5 лет назад

Wow. That was a small board. 🤣

@jesuszamora6949 4 года назад

God damn... I get this is pretty primitive, but that face is CREEPY.

@Shinzon23 5 лет назад

...I'm a computer engineer, and I can't believe computers were ever this crude.

@dBasedxnl 12 лет назад

In iOS apps can run music in the background , do downloading / data processing in the background , do navigation , send notifications The user will not see any difference between a conservative multitasking model and a real one. Also , android is really bad at presenting multitasking. RU-vid can't play in the background , switching app menu takes 1+ seconds to show up (better in ICS but still bad) and on iOS you can use multitasking gestures - just swipe with four fingers.

@NOOBNUT08 11 лет назад

Why defend Microsoft? Their the one who is competing for your dollar. It isn't like Linux, where if one distribution releases a bad update you have other distros to choose from. With Windows you don't have that luxury.