Norman Wilson's account of the Jerq/Blit etc. is quite complete and correct, though there was some recycling of names. 'Jerq' actually was used quite early, when Pike got interested in bitmap graphics. The name was a takeoff on the Three Rivers Perq, which he (and I) saw at Lucasfilm Ltd. while attending an early Usenix. Blit was the slightly more PC version (suggested either as part of BitBlt or "Bell Labs Interactive Terminal). The originals used the Motorola 68000, and part of the development messup was AT&T Computer systems' decision to switch to the WE32000 processor with consequent delay for porting and reworking. The earliest versions were not quite as wonderful in practice as Norman suggests for the later ones. They were built by the Teletype corp. model shop (in quantity of a few hundred) and downloading the OS took several minutes at 1200bps--necessary at startup, since they didn't have a ROM for the whole thing, just enough for doing a download. They were also static electricity antennas! Many is the time that I would shift in my chair, then touch the keyboard, only to have the terminal reset itself. I developed the habit of putting my hand on the heavy steel case before moving around. On the other hand, the basic idea was architecturally right (and the later commercial versions were not so subject to static, and had ROM for the OS). They were even nicer at 9600bps. It's good to know that Norman is still using his. Dennis