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A Multitasking GUI, Circa 1982

Posted by timothy on from the how-far-we've-come-or-not dept.

autospa points out a post (with video) showing off the multi-tasking abilities of the Blit terminal, developed in 1982 by Rob Pike and Bart Locanthi. Before Windows, before X, and before the Mac (but somewhat later than the Xerox Alto), the Blit terminal provided a multitasking, mouse-driven graphical interface; it took a Unix server on the other side to do the heavy lifting, though.

5 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. cool by wideBlueSkies · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't care so much if it were the first or not. It was still cool for it's time. In my mind, this one being among the first was still quite an achievement.. because if you think about it, not much has changed since then. It really hasn't. Sure the boxes are faster today, and the applications more sophisticated... but the basics of multitasking are more or less the same today.... we stand on the shoulders of giants.

    On another note, I like the look of the portrait oriented monitor. It looks to be so much better suited to documents, and probably coding, than the mostly landscape orientations that came later.

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    1. Re:cool by larien · · Score: 3, Interesting

      On another note, I like the look of the portrait oriented monitor. It looks to be so much better suited to documents, and probably coding, than the mostly landscape orientations that came later.

      I suspect you can blame the early cinema pioneers for that... they decided on a "landscape" format for movies which then became the standard for Television sets. In the 80s, most home computers (Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad 64 and even the Atari ST & Amiga) used the TV as a monitor so a generation of kids grew up assuming monitors must be in portrait layout.

  2. Re:1984 by thomst · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'll say. Try 1968. December 9, to be precise:

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  3. Re:multitasking before 1982 by rubycodez · · Score: 3, Interesting

    the blit seems lame after watching the 1974 Xerox Alto video, though http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYlYSzMqGR8&feature=related

  4. Re:Amiga did *real* multitasking with the same CPU by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And DOS programs could overwite the OS in memory ... Single tasking wasn't so hot either ...

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