[TUHS] Earliest UNIX Workstations?

[Paul Ruizendaal]

> On 26 Jan 2023, at 17:29, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> 
>> 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.
> Not completely true...  1-4K for BW was possible (expensive) but available.  I  tend to believe that systems like E&S could do that. Many raster systems went to 1K -- again is was about cost. I've forgotten the resolution of the GDP2 but is was much higher -- it used a rather expensive HP display.  The price of memory and price of the monitor tneded to dominate. Also the processor was not cheap -- a GDP2 had a dedicated PDP-11/20, but that was also try of things like GT40 and the similar systems of the time.

I meant early micro/home computers. I think John Walker was comparing the typical late 70’s CAD (drawing) system, i.e a mini computer, a few graphics terminals and CAD software versus Interact running on a S-100 system with a high end graphics card, a digitiser board and a terminal. See for instance here:
https://www.3dcadworld.com/autocads-ancestor/

> - I am not sure what graphics software ran on the SUN-1, but it must have been something
> Again - W was the windowing system for the Sun board, running on the V kernel.  It was original envisioned as a very smart terminal to bigger systems.  Remember it did not have an MMU to start with.  Andy added and MMU and then eventually changed it to a 68010.  VLSI Tech was born and eventual became Sun Micro Systems but that was a few years later.  I have to believe W as moved to UNIX on the SUN Terminal and that would have been what Chris Kent and folks started with for the microVax - but I do not know for sure.



> Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2023 09:51:59 -0700
> From: Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com>

> 
>> - I am not sure what graphics software ran on the SUN-1, but it must have been something
> 
> If this is the sun microsystem sun-1, the leaked sources online suggest that these initially ran a V7 port by Unisoft. This switched to a 4.2BSD port maybe before it went to customers as SunOS 1.0 if other leaked sources can be believed.

I never really distinguished between the Stanford "SUN" and the Sun Microsystems "Sun-1”, oops. Taking Clem’s comment into account I could see that the SUN ran the V kernel and the W graphics system, and that the Sun-1 was using an early form of X.


> Bakul Shah bakul at iitbombay.org 
> Fri Jan 27 05:39:30 AEST 2023
> 
> I wonder if this mythical w is the same as V's VGTS as it seems to have
> pretty much the same model.
> From https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/357332.357334


That is an interesting thought and paper.

The paper says:

"As noted in Section 3, the VGTS is only one component of the user interface software. The other components are the view manager, the exec server, and the executives. Together, the view manager and exec server constitute the user interface management.”

In this context an “executive” seems to be similar to a shell, the exec server appears to manage client connections and the view manager seems to be similar to a window manager in X. Maybe this whole was (later?) referred to as “W”?

This was the post announcing X:

From: rws at mit-bold (Robert W. Scheifler)
To: window at athena
Subject: window system X
Date: 19 Jun 1984 0907-EDT (Tuesday)

I've spent the last couple weeks writing a window
system for the VS100. I stole a fair amount of code
from W, surrounded it with an asynchronous rather
than a synchronous interface, and called it X. Overall
performance appears to be about twice that of W. The
code seems fairly solid at this point, although there are
still some deficiencies to be fixed up. 

We at LCS have stopped using W, and are now
actively building applications on X. Anyone else using
W should seriously consider switching. This is not the
ultimate window system, but I believe it is a good
starting point for experimentation. Right at the moment
there is a CLU (and an Argus) interface to X; a C
interface is in the works. The three existing
applications are a text editor (TED), an Argus I/O
interface, and a primitive window manager. There is
no documentation yet; anyone crazy enough to
volunteer? I may get around to it eventually. 

Anyone interested in seeing a demo can drop by
NE43-531, although you may want to call 3-1945
first. Anyone who wants the code can come by with a
tape. Anyone interested in hacking deficiencies, feel
free to get in touch.