[TUHS] Earliest UNIX Workstations?

[Rob Pike]

There was also all the work with the Three Rivers Graphic Wonder on the
PDP-11/45 at the University of Toronto Dynamic Graphics Project from 1974
onwards, as well as various film plotters, Versatec, Tennenhouse's frame
buffer, and so on.

-rob


On Fri, Jan 27, 2023 at 2:58 AM Paul Ruizendaal <pnr at planet.nl> wrote:

>
> As a result of the recent discussion on this list I’m trying to understand
> the timeline of graphical computing on Unix, first of all in my preferred
> time slot ’75 -’85.
>
> When it comes to Bell Labs I’m aware of the following:
>
> - around 1975 the Labs worked on the Glance-G vector graphics terminal.
> This was TSS-516 based with no Unix overlap I think.
> - around the same time the Labs seem to have used the 1973 Dec VT11 vector
> graphics terminal; at least the surviving LSX Unix source has a driver for
> it
> - in 1976 there was the Terak 8510; this ran primarily USCD pascal, but it
> also ran LSX and/or MX (but maybe only much later)
> - then it seems to jump 1981 and to the Blit.
> - in 1984 there was MGR that was done at Bellcore
>
> Outside of the labs (but on Unix), I have:
>
> - I am not sure what graphics software ran on the SUN-1, but it must have
> been something
> - Clem just mentioned the 1981 Tektronix Magnolia system
> - Wikipedia says that X1 was 1984 and X11 was 1987; I’m not sure when it
> became Unix centered
> - Sun’s NeWS arrived only in 1989, I think?
>
> Outside of Unix, in the microcomputer world there was a lot of cheap(er)
> graphics hardware. Lot’s of stuff at 256 x 192 resolution, but up to 512 x
> 512 at the higher end. John Walker writes that the breakout product for
> Autodesk was Interact (the precursor to AutoCAD). Initially developed for
> S-100 bus systems it quickly moved to the PC. There was a lot of demand for
> CAD at a 5K price point that did not exist at a 50K price point.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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