Blit Terminal (1982)

VintageCG
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 2 months, 2012–2023
YouTube
67K views · 16 years ago · demo · intermediate · historical

A vintage demo video from 1982 of the Blit, the bitmap graphics terminal from Bell Labs. It shows windows, mouse use and graphics on a Unix terminal, with a synth soundtrack.

HN shares it to show what the Blit was and compares it to early VR and spatial computing today.

“Here's a vintage demo video put together 30 years ago, complete with warbly synth score”
GUI historyHCI research
#blit#belllabs#windowing#unix#1982

3 comments from Hacker News

b
@bb882022 · in “Blit Terminal (1982)”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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d
@dewitt2012 · in “Rob Pike - Unix trivia”
But what is Blit, you ask? Here's a vintage demo video put together 30 years ago, complete with warbly synth score: ▶ this video Enjoy with sound on.
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k
@koolala2023 · in “Immersed App Announces VR/AR Physical Product for Work”
link I made this video to show one way how multiple spatial programs look. It's sorta like VR today is early 1982-era computing where we can only open a single 3D terminal and we can't do 3D multi-programming yet. ▶ this video VR compositors are much more complicated then 2D rectangle compositors. I hope someone invents and releases a good performant general technique like frame reprojection systems.
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