On Sun, Feb 26, 2023, 9:23 AM Leah Neukirchen <
leah@vuxu.org> wrote:
Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> writes:
> On Sun, Feb 26, 2023 at 04:50:34PM +0100, Leah Neukirchen wrote:
>> Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> writes:
>>
>> > - was there any discussion of alternatives to X?
>> >>
>> >
>> > Discussions yes. But not much more than talk.
>> >
>> > There were vgalib apps that ran graphics on the console, but I never used
>> > them.
>>
>> Back then I didn't have enough disk space to install X11 and TeX at
>> the same time, so I mostly worked on the 80x25 console
>
> screen(1) was my go to back in the days of limited resources. Especially
> screen -r so you could detach, come back the next day and have all your
> setup right there.
>
> Wasn't that fancy but oh so useful. I'm with Ted in that we just wanted
> a bunch of terminal windows.
Curiously, I learned about screen only way later, when I used remote
systems. But I made getty spawn on 12 ttys, so that worked as well to
multitask.
That's a trick that dates back to the 80s. Different Unixes did that. I first saw it on the DEC Rainbow running an enhanced Venix (V7) in like 1987 where you had 4 consoles, but no job control.... SCO System V did it in the late 80s too. I think the pre system V Xenix did too.
Warner