[TUHS] Jerq menuhit/mhit

[arnold at skeeve.com]

Good question. MGR was somewhat later. It was done by a guy at BellCore
if I remember correctly.  I used it some on a small sparcstation. On that
hardware it was super fast, whereas X11 was much slower. This would have
been in early-to-mid 90s.

Arnold

Dave Brown <dave at bagpuss.nu> wrote:

> Was there a connection between MGR and Blit?  Just from a programming
> standpoint there is similarities in that they both transport agnostic;
> using escape sequences for graphical/UI functions.  I know MGR code does
> little more than provide a bitblit interface and it’s upto whoever
> ports it to implement the interface to the hardware.
> 
> I took the MGR code, and extended the distribution for the Atari ST
> (added new demos, fonts and libraries); many years ago.
>
> Might be worth porting it to SDL for a giggle.
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Jul 2, 2023, at 3:11 AM, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
> > I had a DMD 5620 for a few (too short) years at Georgia Tech; AT&T
> > gifted a number of them as well as two 3B20s to us. We used the DMDs
> > on a vax running 4.2 BSD. They were heavy suckers! I think close to
> > 50 pounds!
> > 
> > It was wonderful to use.  Extremely productive as compared to a regular
> > terminal with just one session.
> > 
> > Unfortunately, there were enough of the things in use that it drove
> > the poor vax to its knees.
> > 
> > Nonetheless, I have fond memories of it to this day.
> > 
> > Arnold
> > 
> > Rob Pike <robpike at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> The original name was Jerq, which was first the name given by friends at
> >> Lucasfilm to the Three Rivers PERQ workstations they had, for which the
> >> Pascal-written software and operating system were unsatisfactory. Bart
> >> Locanthi and I (with Greg Chesson and Dave Ditzel?) visited Lucasfilm in
> >> 1981 and we saw all the potential there with none of the realization. My
> >> personal aha was that, as on the Alto, only one thing could be running at a
> >> time and that was a profound limitation. When we began to design our answer
> >> to these problems a few weeks later, we called Lucasfilm to ask if they
> >> minded us borrowing their excellent rude name, and they readily agreed.
> >> 
> >> Our slogan: A jerq at every desk.
> >> 
> >> This was cool, we had good shirts, and Bart even made license plates that
> >> read JERQ. But when the thing started to get interesting, Sam Morgan, 127's
> >> director, got very nervous. He didn't want to talk to his colleagues about
> >> how good our jerqs were. So he proposed "RX" (research experimental) and
> >> Bart and I immediately huddled down and came up with blit, from bitblt, and
> >> that was accepted. So it was Sam who forced the issue. A shame really, but
> >> BTL management wasn't famous for its sense of humor.
> >> 
> >> This is all with the 68000 original, which had been hand-built by us using
> >> wire wrap and then in larger but still modest numbers by a company on Long
> >> Island whose name was Northern Atlantic if I remember right. Wing Moy did
> >> most of the work there.
> >> 
> >> Teletype came and measured and analyzed and proposed building some with
> >> metal cases and more mass producible board technology, and that became what
> >> people around the company, and later elsewhere, called the Blit.
> >> 
> >> The DMD-5620 was the WE32000 version, which resulted from a decision by
> >> Scanlon to ram up WE32000 production by selling this product with the chip
> >> in it, at a loss because the chip alone cost something like $2000, compared
> >> to something like $25 for the 68000. Also, the WE32000 was far less
> >> suitable a chip, being buggy and also slower at the specific tasks like bit
> >> shifting that you needed for fast graphics.
> >> 
> >> I still have the license plate. Here's a picture I made today.
> >> 
> >> [image: IMG_4673.jpg]
> >> 
> >> For those perhaps too young to understand what a revolution the merging of
> >> graphics and multitasking was back then, some testimonials from the time:
> >> 
> >> From dmr Tue Apr  7 02:01 EST 1981 remote from research
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Don't lose interest in the jerq terminal stuff, no matter what
> >> 
> >> momentary problems you have with the device or the system.
> >> 
> >> I think the approach and the progress so far are very exciting.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> From wild!scj Sun Nov 21 09:52 EST 1982
> >> 
> >> Well, after an afternoon with the bilt, seeing asteroids, crabs, maxwell,
> >> 
> >> etc. etc, I asked Sarah what she liked best.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> "I liked mpx best"
> >> 
> >> 
> >> "What did you like about it?"
> >> 
> >> 
> >> "I liked making all the different boxes, and making all the different things
> >> 
> >> happen in them, and making them go away."
> >> 
> >> 
> >> I think "universal appeal" is not too strong a term...
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> From alice!vax135!tbl Sat May 14 12:07:42 1983
> >> 
> >> To: alice!rob
> >> 
> >> Subject: you've spoiled me
> >> 
> >> 
> >> I can't believe it.  I'm sitting here at home in front of my
> >> 
> >> 2621, and I can't work.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Damn it.  I've got to get a blit at home.
> >> 
> >> [Turner and I are really pleased with the software.  Good job!]
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> -rob
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On Sat, Jul 1, 2023 at 1:35 AM Seth Morabito <web at loomcom.com> wrote:
> >> 
> >>> Speaking of the Jerq...
> >>> Is there a definitive history anywhere of the progression from Jerq up
> >>> through the AT&T 730MTG? When I wrote my DMD5620 emulator I tried to find a
> >>> complete history, but wasn't able to. I just found various (possibly
> >>> apocryphal) bits and pieces here and there about AT&T objecting to various
> >>> names until "DMD" was settled on by marketing at some point, and forcing
> >>> the use of a WE32K in the 5620 for make-corporate-happy reasons.
> >>> -Seth
> >>> --
> >>>  Seth Morabito * Poulsbo, WA * https://loomcom.com/