The Blit - The first Unix graphical multi-programming terminal by Rob Pike and Bart Locanthi

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2 HN recommenders · recommended in 2 months, 2012–2016
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25K views · 17 years ago · demo · intermediate · historical

A 1982 promotional demo of the Blit, a graphical multi-programming terminal for Unix built by Rob Pike and Bart Locanthi at Bell Labs. It shows several windows running at once on a bitmapped display driven by a mouse.

HN treats it as an early window system demo, comparing it to the Mother of All Demos and tracing it to Pike's later Acme and rio.

GUI historyHCI research
#blit#robpike#windowsystem#unix#belllabs

5 comments from Hacker News

t
@tosh2014 · in “Blit – The first Unix graphical multi-programming terminal (1982) [video]”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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v
@voodoochilo2012 · in “The first Unix graphical multi-programming terminal by Pike and Locanthi”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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i
@i4k2016 · in “A Tour of Acme (2012)”
Yes. But the graphical UI interface he's talking about was lost with the advent of Xorg. The same (or very close) interface was available for unix in 1982 with the Blit graphics terminal. Blit was created by Rob Pike (acme creator) too and it influenced the next Pike's GUIs (rio and 8½). In Plan9's rio, windows are treated as completely editable text, then the mouse chords for cut-and-paste works for all applications transparently. Blit promotional video: ▶ this video Wiki: link)
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b
@bishop_mandible2014 · in “Rob Pike: Reflections on Window Systems (2008) [video]”
The Blit video he mentions: ▶ this video A similarly interesting talk by him on CSP-inspired languages (Occam, Erlang, Squeak, Newsqueak, Limbo, Alef, Go): link Slides (not shown in the video): link Interesting as well: From parellel to concurrent (on Sawzall and Go): link
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n
@noselasd2013 · in “'The Mother of All Demos' Is 45 Years Old, Doesn't Look a Day Over 25”
Or a day over 30. The Blit demo - ▶ this video is a bit over 30 years now
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