Blit (computer terminal)
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In computing, the Blit is a programmable bitmap graphics terminal designed by Rob Pike and Bart Locanthi of Bell Labs in 1982. Acting initially as a "glass Teletype" ASCII terminal, after logging into a Unix system a window manager could be downloaded, with each window attached as a separate pseudo-terminal on the host system (multiplexing the serial-line connection). Each window initially ran a terminal emulator, which could be replaced by a downloaded interactive graphical application. The resulting properties were similar to those of a modern Unix windowing system; however the interactive interface and the host application ran on separate systems — an early implementation of distributed computing.
The Blit was commercialized as the AT&T/Teletype model 5620, followed by models 630 and 730.
The folk etymology for the "Blit" name is that it stands for "Bell Labs Intelligent Terminal", and its creators have also joked that it actually stood for "Bacon, Lettuce, and Interactive Tomato." However, Rob Pike's paper on the Blit explains that it was named after the second syllable of "Bit blit", a common name for the bit block transfer operation that is fundamental to the terminal's graphics.[1] Its original nickname was the "jerq", inspired by Three Rivers' PERQ graphic workstation.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Pike, Rob (Sometime in 1983). "The Blit: A Multiplexed Graphics Terminal". . Bell Laboratories Retrieved on 2007-10-03.
[edit] External links
- Bart Locanthi, Rob Pike: Blit (MPEG) (YouTube), the classic animated short about the windowing terminal project (it was necessary to explain how mice worked back then; this was 1982, two years before the Mac) (MPEG)
This article is based in part on the Jargon File, which is in the public domain.