[TUHS] Where/when did TUIs come from

[Rik Farrow]

ECMA 48 was first published in 1976 as a standard for terminal escape
sequences. This could be in support of any multiuser system, not just IBM
or UNIX.

Rik

On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 11:39 AM Adam Koszek <adam at koszek.com> wrote:

> I think it counts! I was suspecting TUIs were either an IBM thing or UNIX
> thing—not sure if it’s < 1970 direction or > 1970 direction. In UNIX,
> someone must have added code for the cursor addressing for CRT screens b/c
> on printer terminals moving back a page … wasn’t possible?
>
> Adam
>
> On Jun 9, 2025, at 11:21 AM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 14:14, Adam Koszek <adam at koszek.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I got interested in UI design and often study some historical aspects of
>> it as I work on software. It’s hard not to notice how fast/usable Text User
>> Interfaces are—ncurses and its siblings are still alive and well. From the
>> ergonomy point of view, not needing a mouse in those interfaces if perfect.
>>
>> Question: where did TUIs come from originally, and what were their
>> earliest instances?
>>
>> Many pages state that Vi was the first, but I’ve been looking through
>> some old hardware photos, and things capable of more sophisticated
>> interactions existed before Vi:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen
>>
>> Some terminals with block display:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270
>>
>> ^ ’71. Wiki says Vi showed up in ’76, but I suspect IBM mainframes may
>> have had TUIs before.
>>
>> Question 2: were there any manuals talking about TUIs? I’m thinking some
>> of those spiffy IBM things mandating certain design.
>>
>
> Does this count?  I was just looking at it the other day.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Editing_System
>
> I have a feeling we're going to get away from UNIX pretty quickly here.
>
> -Henry
>
>
>
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