Blit

[HTPtheSecond]

I'd really love to use the window manager in that machine. Or maybe there isn't a window manager running... is there?

[perplexedmoth]

but will it blend?

[ukaszg]

Amazing, I need to get myself one of those terminals :)

[andrew11235813]

The Apple Lisa, which was Apple's first GUI system was introduced in Jan. 1983. Blit was eventually sold as the AT&T 5620, but not until 1984. The system shown here is very much under development, not something that would be suitable for commercial release. Macs did not have a multi-user or preemptive multitasking OS until OS X in 2002. Windows NT had preemptive multitasking in 1993. They are only true multi-user systems if you buy terminal services licensing.

[flamesholder]

Well, this clearly shows the power of Apple and M$ marketing. This was two years before Mac's got a mouse and a whole 8 years before Windows 3.11 . Keep in mind that Mac OS and Windows we not multi-user and true multitasking operating systems. Mac OS became true multi-user OS with versions X, which basically is UNIX. So, Apple needed almost 20 years to produce true multi-user multi-tasking operating system. And how did it do it? By taking UNIX kernel. Windows? Let's drop the curtain of silence.

[mellowfish316]

Oh. My. God. That is awesome. I am a big linux user, and its nice to see that even early unix was amazing.

[whetphish]

You do know Linux isn't UNIX right?

[mellowfish316]

D: !!

Oh wait. Yes, I know. But when the exact same commands and programs work on linux and unix, I really dont care to distinguish them. Yay vi! (Now I will never say that Mac is unix even if they are using a unix backend. yeesh!) "sudo rm -rf /" - it makes all your computer problems go away!

[mrbum21]

Freaking sweet! Is this what Windows 7 is going to look like?

[chillmost]

This mouse, it's digitizing?

[goldcat7]

Wow, I'm impressed with the timing of the animation on the computers- even if the first "face" scares me.

Yay multi-tasking computers. I'm SOOO happy we have the advanced form of that sort of thing.

[psilogen]

as if we needed another example to support the hypothesis that programmers should not do graphics

[tyrael64]

wow timmy, your mom sure is a blit!

[gthreek]

See, vi-tards? Even back then, vehement use of the keyboard wasn't good.

[cyberprunes]

lol. im guessing thats sarcasm.

The bar of entry is lower in a gui which is fine. There is great use for that.

If you know vi well..you will be many times faster than any point-click moron.

[chieficeworm]

Great! Solid evidence of prior art!

[ickyelf]

Looks interesting, but the Sun workstations came out at the same time. Why hook up a terminal to a VAX when you can buy a bunch of computers and network for much cheaper?

[slawmasta]

A decent VAX provided a much more powerful machine to many people, while everyone wanted their own Sun machine. Although the days of centralized servers are largely gone, the practice actually allowed for much simpler maintenance--you only have to upgrade the VAX, the terminals keep working just fine. Think of the current annoyance that arises whenever it's time to upgrade a whole office full of Windows machines, and the other associated maintenance.

[gnamp]

cheeky de-bugger

[benchodbosrino]

This isn't a jab at the poster. It's music like that and language like that which turned people off computing in the beginning.

But that sure was a hot computer for the time, and still is (kinda.)