🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3vpjhd$onl@news.ycc.yale.edu>,
North Haven High School <nhaven1@minerva.cis.yale.edu> wrote:
>David Breneman (david.breneman@mccaw.com) wrote:
>: In article <3v7sem$8t0@mudraker.mtholyoke.edu> jbmiller@mtholyoke.edu (Mac)  
>: writes:
>: > Overlapping windows preceeded the mac in a RESEARCH LAB.  One I might add 
>: > not everyone had access to.
 
>: > Yes, they preceeded the Mac, but not in ANY released system.
                                         ^^^
>: How about layers(1) and the Teletype 5620 DMD terminal?  That was
>: released in 1984.  Personally, I don't know how long Macs have been
>: around, so if there were on the market in 1983, I'm wrong.  BTW, the
>: DMD software was called "The AT&T Windowing Utilities", which definitely
>: predates Microsoft's use of the word.  I cite as my source authority *me*.
>: I'm the keeper of the tty5620 FAQ. :-)
>
>I don't know much about these systems (and I'd love to see the FAQ), but 
>I must chime in that the Lisa (later dubbed Mac XL) *was* out in 1983.  
>It had a Mac-like, though not quite as refined, interface.  
>
>The Mac 128 came out in 1984...anyone know the month?  (April sounds 
>about right to me)

   Prior to Apple and Microsoft (and others) making claims that anything
in software with the name 'windows' was invented or made marketable by them,
there was a free market of ideas in how to best support graphical interfaces
on bit-mapped displays.  Xerox was certainly in the forefront of this
evolution in the human interface world.  (I might note that I'm not aware
of anyone prior to Apple or Microsoft/IBM claiming that a 'windows display'
was part of or the core of an Operating System -- they certainly can claim
that distinction.)

   Anyway, take a look at the August 1981 issue of BYTE for an article on
the "Smalltalk Graphics Kernel", where D. Ingalls describes the Smalltalk
version of overlapping windows connected to independent processes, which
first ran on the Xerox ALTO (around 1976?).  SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics #13,
1979 also covers windows-like interfaces.  Rob Pike's wonderful discription
of the BITBLT/RasterOp block transfer operator and it's usefullness in
managing overlapping windows is in ACM Transactions of Graphics #2, 1983,
and the BLIT terminal (pre-DMD terminal based on the 68000) history is
described in Software-Practice&Experience, Feb. 1985.

   A history of 10 years(!) of window management is contained in the
proceedings of the April 1985 Alvey Workshop in the UK, published as
"Methodology of Window Management" by Springer-Verlay in 1986.  A brief
summary:

 ~1976? - SmallTalk on Alto - first overlapping window system
          (active window had to be on Top in initial versions)

 1977 - Warren Teitelman & Bob Sproull develop DLisp at MIT using Alto
        as a display device and a UNIX system as the 'host'.  First use
        of a distinguishing pattern in the window's NAME space to indicate
        which window was active.  (This decoupled display vs. UNIX host
        was a model for the BLIT, X-Windows, etc.)

  1977 through 1980 - Xerox Systems Development Division (not PARC) develops
        Tajo in the Mesa environment - multi-process with scroll bars,
        sub-windows and pop-up menus.  First to iconify windows and to
        support static menus (user-built).

  1979 through 1982 - Cedar at Xerox PARC borrows from Tajo, removing the
        overlapping windows, but adding "retained" windows without popup
        menus.  (Thus a tiling window manager - used as model for early
        versions of Microsoft WINDOWS.)  The "retained" windows did not
        require applications to repair damage from pull-down menus or
        cases where the window became entirely hidden.

  1980+ - InterlispD for the Xerox Dorado/Dandelion systems added retained
        windows and popup menus into the SmallTalk using ideas from Tajo.
        The Dorado had a hardware version of BITBLT.  Both used "cooperative
        multi-tasking".  [I used a Dandelion in 1986 and was not aware that
        the OS wasn't premptive -- never thought to check....]
        
  ??? - early SunWindows allowed overlap, but applications had to repair
        damage and refresh for scrolling..

Al Varney - just my opinion