22 Oct
2018
22 Oct
'18
12:57 p.m.
Liam Proven wrote:
<snip>
On the one hand, the cosmetics. *Every* Unix desktop
out there draws
on Win95.
I take exception to the "*Every*" in Liam's statement above.
Replacing "Unix" with "Linux" would make the statement more correct.
X-Windows-based desktop metaphor UI's existed within the Unix world long before Win95
came on the scene.
The whole desktop metaphor UI existed long before Windows 95 in non-Unix implementations
by Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) with the pioneering Xerox Alto, introduced in
1973, which implemented Alan Kay's concepts for the desktop metaphor that were
postulated in 1970 using Smalltalk as the core operating system.
Windows 95, and the earlier versions of Microsoft's desktop metaphor UI's, were
patterned after these implementations. Microsoft simply took concepts that already
existed in the world of UI design, and made their own implementation based on those
concepts.
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
22 Oct
22 Oct
3:19 p.m.
On 10/22/2018 10:57 AM, Rick Bensene via cctalk wrote:
X-Windows-based desktop metaphor UI's existed
within the Unix world long before Win95 came on the scene.
The whole desktop metaphor UI existed long before Windows 95 in non-Unix implementations
by Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) with the pioneering Xerox Alto, introduced in
1973, which implemented Alan Kay's concepts for the desktop metaphor that were
postulated in 1970 using Smalltalk as the core operating system.
That may be true but DOS/WINDOWS and APPLE II all had TV display output
formats, now it is WIDE SCREEN ONLY. From what little I have seen about
the Alto, you had a full sized 8x10? page format. The printed page
DOES matter for graphic displays. Try and find a printed page size PDF
reader, or one a tad smaller. Reading a PDF on a KINDLE DOES NOT WORK.
I suspect a good PDF reader, a not tablet, is needed often for all the
online doc's at places like bit savers to get the knowledge close to a
classic computer.
I hate GUI's,because I hate ICON's. I see a little hand popup, is a
mouse pointer,stop that sign, or play feel the naked photo.
Ben.
4:56 p.m.
On 10/22/2018 01:19 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:
I hate GUI's,because I hate ICON's. I see a
little hand popup, is a
mouse pointer,stop that sign, or play feel the naked photo.
It's perfectly possible to use GUIs without any icons.
It's possible to use GUIs without a mouse.
The GUI is not responsible for what people do with them / the mouse.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
5:13 p.m.
On 10/22/2018 2:56 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:
On 10/22/2018 01:19 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:
What do you call the TEXT based mouse interface, like found on some
dos shells. GUI I think of is the pure graphics.
Ben.
I hate GUI's,because I hate ICON's. I see
a little hand popup, is a
mouse pointer,stop that sign, or play feel the naked photo.
It's perfectly possible to use GUIs without any icons.
It's possible to use GUIs without a mouse.
The GUI is not responsible for what people do with them / the mouse.
7:16 p.m.
On 10/22/2018 03:13 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:
What do you call the TEXT based mouse interface, like
found on some dos
shells.
I tend to use the term "(mouse) cursor" for both text and GUI.
GUI I think of is the pure graphics.
What is a graphic?
Does a traditional text (extend ASCII characters 0 - 255) with ANSI
color coding with sufficiently high enough resolution count?
Particularly if the resolution is high enough that "characters" can
almost double as pixels for a GUI? }:-)
Also, MS-DOS Shell (as ships with MS-DOS 6.22) has a GUI mode.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
23 Oct
23 Oct
6:38 a.m.
On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 22:56, Grant Taylor via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
It's perfectly possible to use GUIs without any icons.
It's possible to use GUIs without a mouse.
The GUI is not responsible for what people do with them / the mouse.
Exactly so.
Oberon is a good example of a GUI with no icons. It is text-based -- a
TUI -- but graphical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_(operating_system)
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
22 Oct
22 Oct
9:38 p.m.
As they used to say, Windows95 = Mac 1984. Which is pushing it a bit but has some truth in
it... Maybe Mac 1990. Curiously, the Xerox Alto has quite advanced GUI and object oriented
programming (including the smalltalk windowing environment), but no desktop metaphor or
icons that I have seen. I believe desktop metaphors appear later in the Alto commercial
successor, the Xerox Star, and in the Apple Lisa, which bears strong Xerox influences.
Xerox?s desktop metaphor pushes the object concept a bit far, while the Lisa got what
would become the modern ubiquitous version of the concept almost dead on. Did I get this
approximately right? Are there any other GUI desktop metaphors that predates this?
Marc
On Oct 22, 2018, at 2:19 PM, ben via cctalk <cctalk
at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 10/22/2018 10:57 AM, Rick Bensene via cctalk
wrote:
X-Windows-based desktop metaphor UI's existed within the Unix world long before Win95
came on the scene.
The whole desktop metaphor UI existed long before Windows 95 in non-Unix implementations
by Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) with the pioneering Xerox Alto, introduced in
1973, which implemented Alan Kay's concepts for the desktop metaphor that were
postulated in 1970 using Smalltalk as the core operating system.
That may be true but DOS/WINDOWS and APPLE II all had TV display output formats, now it
is WIDE SCREEN ONLY. From what little I have seen about the Alto, you had a full sized
8x10? page format. The printed page
DOES matter for graphic displays. Try and find a printed page size PDF
reader, or one a tad smaller. Reading a PDF on a KINDLE DOES NOT WORK.
I suspect a good PDF reader, a not tablet, is needed often for all the
online doc's at places like bit savers to get the knowledge close to a
classic computer.
I hate GUI's,because I hate ICON's. I see a little hand popup, is a mouse
pointer,stop that sign, or play feel the naked photo.
Ben.
23 Oct
23 Oct
12:10 a.m.
The desk top metaphor goes back to at least Doug Englebarts work in the 1960s. There were
no icons, but the basic metaphor was there.
You need to be careful when you talk about Smalltalk since there were several quite
different versions of it. The early versions were far more interesting and experimental
than the later ones. Unfortunately most of the existing documentation is on Smalltalk 80
which was an attempt to take the language main stream. I do seem to recall that the
earlier implementations had icons and the full desktop metaphor. They may have been
dropped as being to radical for the time.
Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 22, 2018, at 9:38 PM, Curious Marc via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
As they used to say, Windows95 = Mac 1984. Which is pushing it a bit but has some truth
in it... Maybe Mac 1990. Curiously, the Xerox Alto has quite advanced GUI and object
oriented programming (including the smalltalk windowing environment), but no desktop
metaphor or icons that I have seen. I believe desktop metaphors appear later in the Alto
commercial successor, the Xerox Star, and in the Apple Lisa, which bears strong Xerox
influences. Xerox?s desktop metaphor pushes the object concept a bit far, while the Lisa
got what would become the modern ubiquitous version of the concept almost dead on. Did I
get this approximately right? Are there any other GUI desktop metaphors that predates
this?
Marc
>> On Oct 22, 2018, at 2:19 PM, ben via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
>>
>> On 10/22/2018 10:57 AM, Rick Bensene via cctalk wrote:
>> X-Windows-based desktop metaphor UI's existed within the Unix world long
before Win95 came on the scene.
>> The whole desktop metaphor UI existed long before Windows 95 in non-Unix
implementations by Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) with the pioneering Xerox Alto,
introduced in 1973, which implemented Alan Kay's concepts for the desktop metaphor
that were postulated in 1970 using Smalltalk as the core operating system.
>
> That may be true but DOS/WINDOWS and APPLE II all had TV display output formats, now
it is WIDE SCREEN ONLY. From what little I have seen about the Alto, you had a full sized
8x10? page format. The printed page
> DOES matter for graphic displays. Try and find a printed page size PDF
> reader, or one a tad smaller. Reading a PDF on a KINDLE DOES NOT WORK.
> I suspect a good PDF reader, a not tablet, is needed often for all the
> online doc's at places like bit savers to get the knowledge close to a
> classic computer.
>
> I hate GUI's,because I hate ICON's. I see a little hand popup, is a mouse
pointer,stop that sign, or play feel the naked photo.
>
> Ben.
>
12:26 a.m.
On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 9:11 PM Mark Green via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
The desk top metaphor goes back to at least Doug
Englebarts work in the
1960s. There were no icons, but the basic metaphor was there.
You need to be careful when you talk about Smalltalk since there were
several quite different versions of it. The early versions were far more
interesting and experimental than the later ones. Unfortunately most of the
existing documentation is on Smalltalk 80 which was an attempt to take the
language main stream. I do seem to recall that the earlier implementations
had icons and the full desktop metaphor. They may have been dropped as
being to radical for the time.
This is entirely incorrect. Earlier versions of Smalltalk investigated a
lot of different ideas, but none of them used a desktop metaphor with (or
without) icons.
- Josh
6:30 a.m.
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 03:40, Curious Marc via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
As they used to say, Windows95 = Mac 1984. Which is pushing it a bit but has some truth
in it... Maybe Mac 1990. Curiously, the Xerox Alto has quite advanced GUI and object
oriented programming (including the smalltalk windowing environment), but no desktop
metaphor or icons that I have seen. I believe desktop metaphors appear later in the Alto
commercial successor, the Xerox Star, and in the Apple Lisa, which bears strong Xerox
influences. Xerox?s desktop metaphor pushes the object concept a bit far, while the Lisa
got what would become the modern ubiquitous version of the concept almost dead on. Did I
get this approximately right?
I'd say you're pretty much bang-on.
Are there any other GUI desktop metaphors that
predates this?
Not that I'm aware of.
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
1:46 p.m.
Curious Marc wrote:
Curiously, the Xerox Alto has quite advanced GUI and
object oriented programming (including the smalltalk windowing environment), >but no
desktop metaphor or icons that I have seen. I believe desktop metaphors appear later in
the Alto commercial successor, the >Xerox Star, and in the Apple Lisa, which bears
strong Xerox influences. Xerox?s desktop metaphor pushes the object concept a bit far,
>while the Lisa got what would become the modern ubiquitous version of the concept
almost dead on. Did I get this approximately >right? Are there any other GUI desktop
metaphors that predates this?
Marc is correct here. My memory was faulty in my original posting about the "Desktop
Metaphor". The Alto, at least in its initial incarnation didn't really have a
true desktop metaphor, though prototypes of the desktop environment may have run on it
internally to PARC. The Star, which was a commercial product (as opposed to Alto),
definitely did, and that's where my memory was faulty. Thanks, Marc, for pointing
out my error.
A place I worked for many, many years ago was involved with Smalltalk and OO database
development. They had a working Xerox Smalltalk machine, and that's what I
remembered the desktop metaphor from, but was thinking it was an Alto. After doing a
little digging through old notes, I realized my memory of the machine was incorrect, and
that the machine they had was a Star.
I remember tinkering around with the Star, which by the time I was at the company, had
been pretty much put out to pasture. The environment was quite intuitive, and easy to
use, though it took me a little while to get my mind wrapped around the concept of
Smalltalk, because I had no exposure to object environments prior to playing with the
machine. I was surprised at how responsive the machine was considering that the tech in
it by that time was pretty old. It was definitely an education playing with it. I
wonder whatever happened to that machine? Hmmm...maybe I should send out some Emails to
folks that I worked with back then.....
The only other desktop metaphor environment that existed around this same time was at
Tektronix, though the work at Tektronix was slightly behind the work at Xerox, was
heavily based on the developments at Xerox, and the work was done under license from Xerox
with regard to the Smalltalk-80 implementation used on the machine.
Tektronix created a machine called Magnolia that used a Smalltalk environment like the
Alto/Star, had a bitmapped display and a desktop GUI. Prototypes of the machine were
running in early 1981, and it was quite refined by '82. The machine never became a
product, though it did pave the way for a couple of generations of Smalltalk-based
workstations introduced by Tektronix beginning in late '84.
-Rick
2:10 p.m.
On 10/23/18 10:46 AM, Rick Bensene via cctalk wrote:
I remember tinkering around with the Star, which by
the time I was at the company, had been pretty much put out to pasture. The environment
was quite intuitive, and easy to use, though it took me a little while to get my mind
wrapped around the concept of Smalltalk, because I had no exposure to object environments
prior to playing with the machine. I was surprised at how responsive the machine was
considering that the tech in it by that time was pretty old. It was definitely an
education playing with it. I wonder whatever happened to that machine? Hmmm...maybe I
should send out some Emails to folks that I worked with back then.....
Finding an 8010 running Smalltalk is one of the missing links.
So far, no one has been able to get the 6085 images working I recovered a few years ago.
8010 and 6085 Smalltalk were marketed by Xerox Special Information Systems in Pasadena
Some information is available under http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/xsis
"Golden Tiger" which evolved into Analyst were developed for a three letter
government agency.
6:33 a.m.
On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 21:19, ben via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Try and find a printed page size PDF
reader, or one a tad smaller. Reading a PDF on a KINDLE DOES NOT WORK.
I suggest you look at the Kindle DX.
I bought one. I got it 2nd hand, from the USA, via eBay.
https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-DX-Wireless-Reader-3G-Global/dp/B002GYWHSQ
https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reading-Display-Globally/dp/B0015TG1…
One of the main reasons I got it is that it renders PDFs well and a
lot of important computer history books and the like are only readily
available as PDFs.
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
1:12 p.m.
On 10/23/2018 4:33 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 21:19, ben via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I piced up a used 9.7 inch Onyx Boox off ebay.
I live in CANADA so got the useless AMAZON -- no selecton, massive
shipping charges, and no products sold from CANADA.
Try and find a printed page size PDF
reader, or one a tad smaller. Reading a PDF on a KINDLE DOES NOT WORK.
I suggest you look at the Kindle DX.
I bought one. I got it 2nd hand, from the USA, via eBay.
https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-DX-Wireless-Reader-3G-Global/dp/B002GYWHSQ
https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reading-Display-Globally/dp/B0015TG1…
When I was looking for a new reader, all I could find was the 6" crap
on the web, thus my kindle statement. Until they bring back the DX
I still feel we are stuck with crappy low priced readers and windows 95
windows.
One of the main reasons I got it is that it renders
PDFs well and a
lot of important computer history books and the like are only readily
available as PDFs.
Where do you get them? I know of Bitsavers but that is all.
Ben.
PS: WIRTH still has his stuff around for GUI system.
https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/
1:21 p.m.
New subject: High res e-readers - was Re: Desktop Metaphor
On 2018-10-23 2:12 p.m., ben via cctalk wrote:
On 10/23/2018 4:33 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
Kobo is sold in Canada. The Aura HD is 265dpi with 6.8" diagonal. Fine
for reading PDFs. And the newer model H2O is just as good, I use mine
every day.
--Toby
On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 21:19, ben via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
I piced up a used 9.7 inch Onyx Boox off ebay.
I live in CANADA so got the useless AMAZON -- no selecton, massive
shipping charges, and no products sold from CANADA. Try and find a printed page size PDF
reader, or one a tad smaller. Reading a PDF on a KINDLE DOES NOT WORK.
I suggest you look at the Kindle DX.
I bought one. I got it 2nd hand, from the USA, via eBay.
https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-DX-Wireless-Reader-3G-Global/dp/B002GYWHSQ
https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reading-Display-Globally/dp/B0015TG1…
When I was looking for a new reader, all I could find was the 6" crap
on the web, thus my kindle statement. Until they bring back the DX
I still feel we are stuck with crappy low priced readers and windows 95
windows.
One of the main reasons I got it is that it
renders PDFs well and a
lot of important computer history books and the like are only readily
available as PDFs.
Where do you get them? I know of Bitsavers but that is all.
Ben.
PS: WIRTH still has his stuff around for GUI system.
https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/
1:43 p.m.
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 19:12, ben <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
On 10/23/2018 4:33 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
I do use Amazon, but I live in the Czech Republic. There's no Czech
Amazon either (although the company has a big office here.)
But I don't buy ebooks, at all, from anyone, so I don't care.
I use Calibre to sync stuff to/from my Kindle DX, or just mount it as
a filesystem and copy it in manually.
https://calibre-ebook.com/
On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 21:19, ben via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I piced up a used 9.7 inch Onyx Boox off ebay.
I live in CANADA so got the useless AMAZON -- no selecton, massive
shipping charges, and no products sold from CANADA. Try and find a printed page size PDF
reader, or one a tad smaller. Reading a PDF on a KINDLE DOES NOT WORK.
I suggest you look at the Kindle DX.
I bought one. I got it 2nd hand, from the USA, via eBay.
When I was looking for a new reader, all I could find
was the 6" crap
on the web, thus my kindle statement. Until they bring back the DX
I still feel we are stuck with crappy low priced readers and windows 95
windows.
I found a PDF that reliably caused my Kindle DX to reboot the moment I
opened it.
So I bought a cheap Chinese tablet (a Chuwi Hi9 Air) and now I mostly use that.
Where do you get them? I know of Bitsavers but that is
all.
Lots of places -- there are many. Scribd is one. Direct downloads, mostly.
PS: WIRTH still has his stuff around for GUI system.
https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/
Yes, that's on there. :-)
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
8:02 a.m.
On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 01:19:37PM -0600, ben via cctalk wrote:
[...]
That may be true but DOS/WINDOWS and APPLE II all had
TV display output
formats, now it is WIDE SCREEN ONLY. From what little I have seen about the
Alto, you had a full sized 8x10? page format. The printed page DOES matter
for graphic displays. Try and find a printed page size PDF reader, or one a
tad smaller. Reading a PDF on a KINDLE DOES NOT WORK. I suspect a good PDF
reader, a not tablet, is needed often for all the online doc's at places like
bit savers to get the knowledge close to a classic computer.
The Kindle is cheap crap optimised to sell Amazon eBooks. Any feature that does
not directly push you to give more money to Amazon is made virtually unusable.
This includes its PDF reader. I gave mine away in disgust.
I suspect that you also have a cheap crap monitor or laptop which uses a nasty
1080p TV panel. They have a much lower resolution than the printed page, so of
course it's going to look like crap. A4 is 11.69" tall, and squeezing that into
1080 pixels gives you 92DPI - worse than fax. Rotating the screen into portrait
mode gives more pixels, but now the limit is fitting the 8.27" wide document
into 1080 pixels, or 130DPI. (Obviously, these are DPIs of the source, not the
scaled image on your monitor.)
I have a 15" 2880 by 1800 display on my laptop, which has a pretty good PDF
reader which will show two pages side-by-side. The resolution is high enough
that it's as good as reading off paper, albeit scaled down to about 70% because
the screen is physically smaller than A4.
Plug my laptop into a nice HiDPI monitor -- or indeed any good-enough laptop
into one of those cheap 4K monitors which use scummy UHD TV panels -- and PDFs
become gloriously large and crisp. Go on, find ?300 or so and treat yourself to
a new display.
10:14 a.m.
I worked on the early Smalltalk systems, mainly variations of Smalltalk 76. They were
there. It was the motivation for my MSc thesis which explored concurrent message passing
for UI implementation including a demo of a system based on the desktop metaphor.
Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 23, 2018, at 8:02 AM, Peter Corlett via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 01:19:37PM -0600, ben via
cctalk wrote:
[...]
That may be true but DOS/WINDOWS and APPLE II all had TV display output
formats, now it is WIDE SCREEN ONLY. From what little I have seen about the
Alto, you had a full sized 8x10? page format. The printed page DOES matter
for graphic displays. Try and find a printed page size PDF reader, or one a
tad smaller. Reading a PDF on a KINDLE DOES NOT WORK. I suspect a good PDF
reader, a not tablet, is needed often for all the online doc's at places like
bit savers to get the knowledge close to a classic computer.
The Kindle is cheap crap optimised to sell Amazon eBooks. Any feature that does
not directly push you to give more money to Amazon is made virtually unusable.
This includes its PDF reader. I gave mine away in disgust.
I suspect that you also have a cheap crap monitor or laptop which uses a nasty
1080p TV panel. They have a much lower resolution than the printed page, so of
course it's going to look like crap. A4 is 11.69" tall, and squeezing that into
1080 pixels gives you 92DPI - worse than fax. Rotating the screen into portrait
mode gives more pixels, but now the limit is fitting the 8.27" wide document
into 1080 pixels, or 130DPI. (Obviously, these are DPIs of the source, not the
scaled image on your monitor.)
I have a 15" 2880 by 1800 display on my laptop, which has a pretty good PDF
reader which will show two pages side-by-side. The resolution is high enough
that it's as good as reading off paper, albeit scaled down to about 70% because
the screen is physically smaller than A4.
Plug my laptop into a nice HiDPI monitor -- or indeed any good-enough laptop
into one of those cheap 4K monitors which use scummy UHD TV panels -- and PDFs
become gloriously large and crisp. Go on, find ?300 or so and treat yourself to
a new display.
10:25 a.m.
On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 7:14 AM Mark Green via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
I worked on the early Smalltalk systems, mainly
variations of Smalltalk
76. They were there. It was the motivation for my MSc thesis which explored
concurrent message passing for UI implementation including a demo of a
system based on the desktop metaphor.
I've never seen evidence for any Smalltalk having a desktop metaphor (as in
the discussion at hand -- icons and folders representing files and/or data,
not merely windows, etc.). It's certainly possible that the platform was
used for experimentation with such within PARC or elsewhere, but no
smalltalk images I've seen contain anything like that. Is your thesis
available to read anywhere?
I wrote an Alto emulator (https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/ContrAlto)
that you can use to run a variety of Smalltalk versions (-72, -74, -76, and
early renditions of -80 are available on Bitsavers) if you wish to revisit
this.
- Josh
8:58 p.m.
New subject: Smalltalk (was: Desktop Metaphor)
Josh Dersch wrote on Tue, 23 Oct 2018 07:25:41 -0700
I've never seen evidence for any Smalltalk having
a desktop metaphor (as in
the discussion at hand -- icons and folders representing files and/or data,
not merely windows, etc.). It's certainly possible that the platform was
used for experimentation with such within PARC or elsewhere, but no
smalltalk images I've seen contain anything like that. Is your thesis
available to read anywhere?
One complication is that the meaning of terms change over time. I am
typing this in Smalltalk (Celeste email app in Squeak 4.1) and it
doesn't use icons.
Smalltalk-72 had a read-eval-print interface but many applications
written in it experimented with different GUI ideas. There were tests
for the overlapping windows that Alan Kay described as "like papers on a
messy desktop". This got filtered into "Smalltalk had a desktop
metaphor" but that is confusing since by the time Star came out the term
meant something that was a step in the direction of Microsoft Bob or
Magic Cap.
Some Smalltalk applications used icons in the sense of the MacPaint tool
bar. In fact, the term "icon" was invented by David C. Smith for his
1975 thesis:
http://worrydream.com/refs/Smith%20-%20Pygmalion.pdf
This had icons, though these were used in an environment more like
Scratch than a desktop (it didn't have windows, for example, and the
icons were related to the various application domains rather than
operating system functions). But given the role David played in the
development of the Star, I would call this a part of the future desktop
metaphor.
Smalltalk-76 got overlapping windows and popup menus as part of its
basic system and the command line got replaced with a select text and
execute or print scheme, later used in Oberon as well.The windows had
title tabs (like later used in BeOS) and they could be collapsed to just
the tab or expanded into the full window. Not quite icons on a desktop,
but not too different either.
I don't know if Smalltalk-76 had multiple projects (desktops) but -78
certainly had them. When seen from another project they were a small
window with a tiny view of the project and any windows it had. Those
looked a lot like icons, though they were literal representations and
not symbolic ones. See figure 11 in:
https://freudenbergs.de/bert/publications/Ingalls-2014-Smalltalk78.pdf
By the way, in the posts about the improvements from PARC to Apple there
was no mention of drag-n-drop, which to me was the most important
difference in practice.
My conclusion: Smalltalk didn't (and still doesn't) have a desktop
metaphor but was a key element in its creation.
-- Jecel
1:27 p.m.
On 10/23/2018 6:02 AM, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote:
I have a 15" 2880 by 1800 display on my laptop,
which has a pretty good PDF
reader which will show two pages side-by-side. The resolution is high enough
that it's as good as reading off paper, albeit scaled down to about 70% because
the screen is physically smaller than A4.
I use the old TV format low res 800x600 windows for windows
because I can't read TINY STUFF.
Plug my laptop into a nice HiDPI monitor -- or indeed
any good-enough laptop
into one of those cheap 4K monitors which use scummy UHD TV panels -- and PDFs
become gloriously large and crisp. Go on, find ?300 or so and treat yourself to
a new display.
I love music so all my money is spent nice flat ELECTROSTATIC speakers
and VALVE amps, and NEW VINYL.
Modern computers are just to play with on the web and read mail and
download DR WHO.
Ben.
2:53 p.m.
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:
Modern computers are just to play with on the web and
read mail and
download DR WHO.
I'll jump out of my massively-multiplayer VR air combat rig long enough to
remind you that you forgot to shout at a cloud and chase the kids off your
lawn. :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
3:30 p.m.
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:
Modern computers are just to play with on the web and
read mail and
download DR WHO.
Remember when "personal" computers were on a par with model trains for
"practicality" and "usefulness".
I've got the Doctor Who MP4 files on a SATA III drive plugged into a
Seagate GoFlex-TV streamer.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
5:07 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/23/2018 1:30 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:
Since this is the CLASSIC **** LIST I only watch the 70's Dr Who :)
Modern computers are just to play with on the web
and read mail and
download DR WHO.
Remember when "personal" computers were on a par with model trains for
"practicality" and "usefulness".
I've got the Doctor Who MP4 files on a SATA III drive plugged into a
Seagate GoFlex-TV streamer.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred???????????? cisin at xenosoft.com
Still designing a early 1970's computer 74181 ALU/ 74170 RAM
256x4 PROMS and CORE STYLE memory. The design will be something 18
bits, just after the time the PDP-8/e came out.
Just waiting for my PDF reader to arrive so I can dig up more
information about that time on general purpose computers at that
time. You just seemed to have 3 kinds of computers back then,
a simple 16 or 12 bits, a decimal or special order product
or a large 32/36 bit machine in a educational or lab environment.
I have a lot of ideas, but I just can't find a clean simple design
yet.
I notice a people are digging up the PDP-8 as a computer. Basic
FPGA development cards are now a dime a dozen, so are there other
computers worth looking at in hind sight as re-build project
or simh emulation?
The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking for simpler designs
where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user
software.
Ben.
5:12 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On Oct 23, 2018, at 5:07 PM, ben via cctalk <cctalk
at classiccmp.org> wrote:
...
The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking for simpler designs
where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user software.
16k words (or even 8k words) is a fine memory size for a single user OS on PDP11. RT-11
runs fine in that, at least the older versions. I used to run RT-11 on an 8kW machine
with an RC11 system disk. DOS-11 also fits in that, if you're masochistic enough to
want to try that OS.
paul
5:31 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/23/2018 3:12 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
I have a DE-0 to run a PDP-11 from PDP2011 but I have hardware problems
here with the monitor and keyboard I have.
http://pdp2011.sytse.net/wordpress/
It is on the to-do list after I get a blinking lights computer running.
Ben.
On Oct 23, 2018, at 5:07 PM, ben via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
...
The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking for simpler designs
where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user software.
16k words (or even 8k words) is a fine memory size for a single user OS on PDP11. RT-11
runs fine in that, at least the older versions. I used to run RT-11 on an 8kW machine
with an RC11 system disk. DOS-11 also fits in that, if you're masochistic enough to
want to try that OS.
paul
5:32 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:
The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking for
simpler designs
where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user
software.
Try the Modular One with an OS written in BCPL.
https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/files/3230/PRG08.pdf
Although that paper suggest 32K of core.
-Gordon
24 Oct
24 Oct
1:29 a.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/23/2018 3:32 PM, Gordon Henderson via cctalk wrote:
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:
A quick search shows NO DOCUMENTS online. Another LOST sytem from the
70's.Ben.
The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking? for
simpler designs
where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user
software.
Try the Modular One with an OS written in BCPL.
https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/files/3230/PRG08.pdf
Although that paper suggest 32K of core.
-Gordon
4:54 a.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:
On 10/23/2018 3:32 PM, Gordon Henderson via cctalk
wrote:
There's a few bits & piece online, maybe not in the "usual" places
though:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Technology_Limited
http://www.redhawksys.com/index_files/Page627.htm
Also worthwhile noting that Iann Baron
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iann_Barron ) went on to found inmos and
create the transputer. I worked in Bristol for some time, starting with a
company founded by some ex-inmos employees in the mid 80's building
transputer base supercomputers - a CPU with a curious instruction set that
(coincidentally?) might be a good fit for the BCPL CINTCODE system. I'm
also sure that the transputer is very much influenced by the Modular One
too.
BCPL continues on to this day, now a 32 or 64 bit language running on all
mainstream OSs and processors.
-Gordon
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:
A quick search shows NO DOCUMENTS online. Another LOST sytem from the
70's.Ben. The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking? for
simpler designs
where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user
software.
Try the Modular One with an OS written in BCPL.
https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/files/3230/PRG08.pdf
Although that paper suggest 32K of core.
9:13 a.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/23/2018 05:32 PM, Gordon Henderson via cctalk wrote:
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:
Why not the Data General Nova,? 16bits and fairly simple.
Allison
The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking? for
simpler designs
where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user
software.
Try the Modular One with an OS written in BCPL.
https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/files/3230/PRG08.pdf
Although that paper suggest 32K of core.
-Gordon 
11:57 a.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/24/2018 08:13 AM, allison via cctalk wrote:
On 10/23/2018 05:32 PM, Gordon Henderson via cctalk
wrote:
Yeah, basically a PDP-8 with a wider word. No surprise,
Edson De Castro designed the PDP-8 first, at DEC, before
creating Data General. And, it retained all the horrible
things about the PDP-8 that I hated.
Jon
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:
Why not the Data General Nova, 16bits and fairly simple.
The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking for
simpler designs
where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user
software.
Try the Modular One with an OS written in BCPL.
https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/files/3230/PRG08.pdf
Although that paper suggest 32K of core.
-Gordon 
12:31 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
You know that since you mentioned possibly using CMOS 22V10's why not just
build a board around AMD 29XX bit slice parts. They actually predate
22V10's by quite a bit and you can pretty much implement what every you
want to without rewiring.
Marc
On Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 8:57 AM Jon Elson via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On 10/24/2018 08:13 AM, allison via cctalk wrote:
On 10/23/2018 05:32 PM, Gordon Henderson via
cctalk wrote:
Yeah, basically a PDP-8 with a wider word. No surprise,
Edson De Castro designed the PDP-8 first, at DEC, before
creating Data General. And, it retained all the horrible
things about the PDP-8 that I hated.
Jon
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:
Why not the Data General Nova, 16bits and fairly simple.
The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking for
simpler designs
where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user
software.
Try the Modular One with an OS written in BCPL.
https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/files/3230/PRG08.pdf
Although that paper suggest 32K of core.
-Gordon
2:11 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/24/2018 10:31 AM, Marc Howard via cctalk wrote:
You know that since you mentioned possibly using CMOS
22V10's why not just
build a board around AMD 29XX bit slice parts. They actually predate
22V10's by quite a bit and you can pretty much implement what every you
want to without rewiring.
Marc
* LOW POWER and REPROGRAMABLE * reglar 22V10's are 100 ma per chip, and
I can buy them online. I have 5 2901's but I can only find them on ebay
now. If I design a register based machine I have them, other wise
TTL is better for odd sized word lengths.
Ben.
11 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/24/2018 01:11 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:
On 10/24/2018 10:31 AM, Marc Howard via cctalk wrote:
Well, I built a 2903 + 2910 32-bit microcoded machine in
1982 or so. See
http://pico-systems.com/stories/1982.html
for gory details. But, today, it would make WAY more sense
to do it with FPGAs. Want to try an experiment? Don't get
out the wire-wrap gun or soldering iron, make a copy of the
FPGA files and edit away. If it doesn't work, you don't have
to undo the wiring changes! Also, the FPGA version might be
as much as 10 times faster.
Jon
You know that since you mentioned possibly using
CMOS
22V10's why not just
build a board around AMD 29XX bit slice parts. They
actually predate
22V10's by quite a bit and you can pretty much implement
what every you
want to without rewiring.
Marc
* LOW POWER and REPROGRAMABLE * reglar 22V10's are 100 ma
per chip, and I can buy them online. I have 5 2901's but I
can only find them on ebay now. If I design a register
based machine I have them, other wise
TTL is better for odd sized word lengths.
Ben.
25 Oct
25 Oct
1:28 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/24/2018 9:00 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
On 10/24/2018 01:11 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:
I just orderd 4 2901's off ebay, So I do plan to build something up to
32 bits.
I have a DE1 FPGA setup for proto typing, but free pcb board layout
programs all seem to suck for me. There is nothing for doing things like
switches or card edge foot prints, but a gizzion and one surface mount
that common people never use.
On 10/24/2018 10:31 AM, Marc Howard via cctalk
wrote:
Well, I built a 2903 + 2910 32-bit microcoded machine in 1982 or so.? See
http://pico-systems.com/stories/1982.html
for gory details.? But, today, it would make WAY more sense to do it
with FPGAs.? Want to try an experiment?? Don't get out the wire-wrap gun
or soldering iron, make a copy of the FPGA files and edit away. If it
doesn't work, you don't have to undo the wiring changes! Also, the FPGA
version might be as much as 10 times faster. You know that since you mentioned possibly using
CMOS 22V10's why not
just
build a board around AMD 29XX bit slice parts.? They actually predate
22V10's by quite a bit and you can pretty much implement what every you
want to without rewiring.
Marc
* LOW POWER and REPROGRAMABLE * reglar 22V10's are 100 ma per chip,
and I can buy them online. I have 5 2901's but I can only find them on
ebay now. If I design a register based machine I have them, other wise
TTL is better for odd sized word lengths.
Ben.
Jon
1:45 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On this subject, is there no interest in serial ALU designs? At one
time, if you wanted a low-cast implementation, that was the way to do
it. Also gives you a leg up on variable word-length designs.
Didn't at least one of the more popular MPU designs employ a serial ALU?
TMS9900?
--Chuck
2 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/25/18 12:45 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
On this subject, is there no interest in serial ALU
designs? At one
time, if you wanted a low-cast implementation, that was the way to do
it. Also gives you a leg up on variable word-length designs.
Didn't at least one of the more popular MPU designs employ a serial ALU?
TMS9900?
--Chuck
Let's not forget the PDP8S.
2:33 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/25/18 10:45 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
Didn't at least one of the more popular MPU
designs employ a serial ALU?
TMS9900?
You've mentioned this a couple of times.
Are you confusing this with the serial CRU I/O scheme TI computers used?
I double-checked and the 960,980 and 990 minicomputers are all 16 bit parallel machines.
The 9980/1 and 9995 had an 8 bit memory bus but internally are 16.
I double-checked, and the TMS9900 has a 16 bit ALU (page 6 in
TMS_9900_Microprocessor_Data_Manual_May76.pdf on bitsavers)
2:49 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/25/18 11:33 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
On 10/25/18 10:45 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
Dunno, the mind is foggy on this detail, since I never played with the
beast. But it seems to me that there was at least one "too slow" MPU
out there in production at some point.
--Chuck
Didn't at least one of the more popular MPU
designs employ a serial ALU?
TMS9900?
You've mentioned this a couple of times.
Are you confusing this with the serial CRU I/O scheme TI computers used?
I double-checked and the 960,980 and 990 minicomputers are all 16 bit parallel machines.
The 9980/1 and 9995 had an 8 bit memory bus but internally are 16.
I double-checked, and the TMS9900 has a 16 bit ALU (page 6 in
TMS_9900_Microprocessor_Data_Manual_May76.pdf on bitsavers)
2:53 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/25/18 11:49 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
Dunno, the mind is foggy on this detail, since I never
played with the
beast. But it seems to me that there was at least one "too slow" MPU
out there in production at some point.
There is the moto MC14500
http://bitsavers.org/components/motorola/14500/MC14500B_Industrial_Control_…
3:01 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/25/18 11:53 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
There is the moto MC14500
http://bitsavers.org/components/motorola/14500/MC14500B_Industrial_Control_…
No, not the ICU--it'd be a real stretch calling it a computer.
It'll come to me at some point.
--Chuck
2:40 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On Oct 25, 2018, at 1:45 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On this subject, is there no interest in serial ALU designs? At one
time, if you wanted a low-cast implementation, that was the way to do
it. Also gives you a leg up on variable word-length designs.
Didn't at least one of the more popular MPU designs employ a serial ALU?
TMS9900?
Serial ALU as a cost saver for low end makes sense in discrete transistor or early SSI
machines, like the PDP-8/L. It's hard to see how it would be useful in MPUs, given
that transistors are so much cheaper there.
The other place I can think of serial arithmetic is in the Orthogonal computer
architecture, sold by Sanders Associates from a 1960s invention by Bill Shooman.
That's an interesting design that does vector arithmetic row-parallel but bit-serial.
Goodyear STARAN used some of those ideas, I believe, though I know very little of the
details.
paul
2:48 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/25/18 11:40 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
PDP-8/S
Saul Dinman's machine, who founded GRI
https://books.google.com/books?id=1jTUBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52&…
Arrays of single-bit processors have been tried.
CHM has one, I'm blanking on the company name.
We had one in Apple ATG.
On Oct 25, 2018, at 1:45 PM, Chuck Guzis via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On this subject, is there no interest in serial ALU designs? At one
time, if you wanted a low-cast implementation, that was the way to do
it. Also gives you a leg up on variable word-length designs.
Didn't at least one of the more popular MPU designs employ a serial ALU?
TMS9900?
Serial ALU as a cost saver for low end makes sense in discrete transistor or early SSI
machines, like the PDP-8/L.
3:02 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On Oct 25, 2018, at 11:48 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
You might be thinking of the AMT DAP, which used arrays of 1-bit processors. (32x32 or
64x64). 10mhz each. I have a 610, it is the most interesting SCSI peripheral I own...
- Josh
On 10/25/18 11:40 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk
wrote:
PDP-8/S
Saul Dinman's machine, who founded GRI
https://books.google.com/books?id=1jTUBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52&…
Arrays of single-bit processors have been tried.
CHM has one, I'm blanking on the company name.
We had one in Apple ATG.
On Oct 25, 2018, at 1:45 PM, Chuck Guzis via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On this subject, is there no interest in serial ALU designs? At one
time, if you wanted a low-cast implementation, that was the way to do
it. Also gives you a leg up on variable word-length designs.
Didn't at least one of the more popular MPU designs employ a serial ALU?
TMS9900?
Serial ALU as a cost saver for low end makes sense in discrete transistor or early SSI
machines, like the PDP-8/L.
3:25 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/25/18 12:04 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
On 10/25/18 12:02 PM, Josh Dersch wrote:
Danny Hillis' CM-1 also used lots of 1-bit processors.
--Chuck
You might be thinking of the AMT DAP, which used
arrays of 1-bit processors.
yup.
I know we have one, just can't find it in the CHM catalog
I have some docs on bitsavers
26 Oct
26 Oct
12:35 a.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 9:01 PM Al Kossow via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On 10/25/18 12:02 PM, Josh Dersch wrote:
Cool -- I have a pile of software that came with mine, the tapes images are
here:
http://yahozna.dyndns.org/scratch/dap/
in case anyone else has one of these.
- Josh
You might be thinking of the AMT DAP, which used
arrays of 1-bit
processors.
yup.
I know we have one, just can't find it in the CHM catalog
I have some docs on bitsavers
10:27 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/25/2018 01:40 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
It was the PDP-8/S (not 8/L) that had the serial ALU. The
8S was a discrete transistor machine, the 8/L used
integrated circuits. I think the core on the 8/S was also
really slow, like 6-8 us cycle time, so having the CPU take
its time made little difference.
Jon
On Oct 25, 2018, at 1:45 PM, Chuck Guzis via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On this subject, is there no interest in serial ALU designs? At one
time, if you wanted a low-cast implementation, that was the way to do
it. Also gives you a leg up on variable word-length designs.
Didn't at least one of the more popular MPU designs employ a serial ALU?
TMS9900?
Serial ALU as a cost saver for low end makes sense in discrete transistor
or early SSI machines, like the PDP-8/L. It's hard to see how it would be useful in
MPUs, given that transistors are so much cheaper there.
3:15 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/25/2018 01:45 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
On this subject, is there no interest in serial ALU
designs? At one
time, if you wanted a low-cast implementation, that was the way to do
it. Also gives you a leg up on variable word-length designs.
Didn't at least one of the more popular MPU designs employ a serial ALU?
TMS9900?
--Chuck
No, 9900 was byte wide.
The 1802 is claimed to be serial.
Allison
5:37 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 11:45 AM Chuck Guzis via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Didn't at least one of the more popular MPU
designs employ a serial ALU?
TMS9900?
I don't think the TI TMS9900 was bit-serial internally, but the RCA CDP1802
and National Semiconductor SC/MP (ISP-8A/500) and SC/MP II (ISP-8A/600)
were.
10:38 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/25/2018 05:37 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:
On Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 11:45 AM Chuck Guzis via
cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
No it the 9900 definitely is not.? The 9900 does have that odd serial
bit addressed CRU
interface.
The 1802 has been verified has a serial ALU.
Didn't at least one of the more popular MPU
designs employ a serial ALU?
TMS9900?
I don't think the TI TMS9900 was bit-serial internally, but the RCA CDP1802
and National Semiconductor SC/MP (ISP-8A/500) and
SC/MP II (ISP-8A/600)
were.
I have no information that the SC/MP or SC/MP II more so are internally
serial.
The do have a serial register to the outside..
There are very few CPUs that had serial insides.?
Allison
3:24 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/25/2018 01:28 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:
On 10/24/2018 9:00 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
Likely make a fortune off my stockpile of 2901s.?
Building machine from the earth up is not that hard, software to make
them useful is a big deal.
On 10/24/2018 01:11 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:
I just orderd 4 2901's off ebay, So I do plan to build something up to
32 bits. On 10/24/2018 10:31 AM, Marc Howard via cctalk
wrote:
Well, I built a 2903 + 2910 32-bit microcoded machine in 1982 or so.?
See
http://pico-systems.com/stories/1982.html
for gory details.? But, today, it would make WAY more sense to do it
with FPGAs.? Want to try an experiment?? Don't get out the wire-wrap
gun or soldering iron, make a copy of the FPGA files and edit away.
If it doesn't work, you don't have to undo the wiring changes! Also,
the FPGA version might be as much as 10 times faster. You know that since you mentioned possibly using
CMOS 22V10's why
not just
build a board around AMD 29XX bit slice parts.? They actually predate
22V10's by quite a bit and you can pretty much implement what every
you
want to without rewiring.
Marc
* LOW POWER and REPROGRAMABLE * reglar 22V10's are 100 ma per chip,
and I can buy them online. I have 5 2901's but I can only find them
on ebay now. If I design a register based machine I have them, other
wise
TTL is better for odd sized word lengths.
Ben.
I have a DE1 FPGA setup for proto typing, but free pcb
board layout
programs all seem to suck for me. There is nothing for doing things
like switches or card edge foot prints, but a gizzion and one surface
mount that common people never use.
The problem is you need to hunt down the libraries or use a tool that
has libraries.? Kicad and Eagle are
work for me.
Once you have libraries that have those doing it become easy.? IF not
draw them!
?
Allison
Jon
10:46 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/25/2018 02:24 PM, allison via cctalk wrote:
Likely make a fortune off my stockpile of 2901s.
Building
machine from the earth up is not that hard, software to
make them useful is a big deal.
Yes, and that's where my 32-bit 2903 project
started to bog
down. I knew some people, OS security was a total joke, so
I COULD have just stolen OS 360 MVT, but REALLY, who would
do that to themselves?
I had a few more bits of logic to wire in, to make a 256-way
branch from the OP-code field of the instruction register to
decode instructions, and from the register fields of the
instruction register to OR into the register address. Then,
I had to write the microcode. I'd done some small test bits
of microcode, including the multiply, and that worked.
(IIRC, the 2903 has an extra shift register, so it can do
the multiply step in one CPU cycle, the 2901 takes 2.)
Well, after that, I had a big decision to make. Should the
memory be on the system bus, like PDP-11 and VAX, or part of
the CPU, like IBM-360 and PDP-10? Then, I had to get memory
wired to the bit slice system, and then build peripheral
controllers. I had a very rough concept scratched up, about
30 chips to make a microcoded 16-bit machine, using fast
EPROMS for the control store. A SCSI interface would be
pretty trivial, but a read-after-write mag tape control and
an 8-channel serial multiplexer would be much more
complicated project. THEN, the big stuff would come, I'd
need an OS and language compilers. I could probably whip up
a version of CP/M with hierarchical directories and
time/date stamps, and maybe a simple editor, but the WHOLE
REASON for this project was to move up to modern high-level
languages. And, I had badly underestimated how difficult
that might become. One scheme might be to start with my
CP/M-like OS, and build a wrapper program that would allow
me to run OS-360 compilers and linkers with whatever object
libraries they needed, and then use them to compile
something more to my liking like Pascal. But, it was all
looking like a LOT of work.
So, I managed to clone a Nat. Semi 32016 system and got it
running, but it was amazingly slow.
I suspect that my kluged memory interface was not fully
optimal, but even the original that I copied was pretty
slow. Then, I spent BIG BUCKS to buy a uVAX-II CPU board
from a broker, and was finally in HOG HEAVEN! It was
certainly fast, almost the speed of the VAX-780's I used at
work, and ALL MINE!
So, that's my story.
Jon
26 Oct
26 Oct
12:33 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/25/2018 10:46 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
On 10/25/2018 02:24 PM, allison via cctalk wrote:
I come from the dark ages first work project was 8008 based, when it was
new.
My first stab was 74181 ALU based and was trying to do z80 faster than
4mhz... no hope there and
feature creep made it not z80.? I worked a little monitor to make it
useful but it gave me the core
understanding of CPU and how they work.?? It was fun developing and
deciding I could change an
instruction to make coding easier.
I also did a simple machine based on a simplification of the basic
microcontroller of the RX01.
It had two instructions Jump CC and DO xxxx? It was more than enough to
be a Harvard machine
programmed at the microcode level.
I did those to bridge the college simple logic and sequential circuits
and their jump to programing
a computer with the bit in the middle missing.
Likely make a fortune off my stockpile of 2901s.
Building machine
from the earth up is not that hard, software to make them useful is a
big deal.
Yes, and that's where my 32-bit 2903 project started to bog down.?
I
knew some people, OS security was a total joke, so I COULD have just
stolen OS 360 MVT, but REALLY, who would do that to themselves?
I had a few more bits of logic to wire in, to make a 256-way branch
from the OP-code field of the instruction register to decode
instructions, and from the register fields of the instruction register
to OR into the register address.? Then, I had to write the microcode.?
I'd done some small test bits of microcode, including the multiply,
and that worked.? (IIRC, the 2903 has an extra shift register, so it
can do the multiply step in one CPU cycle, the 2901 takes 2.)
Well, after that, I had a big decision to make.?
Should the memory be
on the system bus, like PDP-11 and VAX, or part of the CPU, like
IBM-360 and PDP-10?? Then, I had to get memory wired to the bit slice
system, and then build peripheral controllers.? I had a very rough
concept scratched up, about 30 chips to make a microcoded 16-bit
machine, using fast EPROMS for the control store.? A SCSI interface
would be pretty trivial, but a read-after-write mag tape control and
an 8-channel serial multiplexer would be much more complicated
project.? THEN, the big stuff would come, I'd need an OS and language
compilers.? I could probably whip up a version of CP/M with
hierarchical directories and time/date stamps, and maybe a simple
editor, but the WHOLE REASON for this project was to move up to modern
high-level languages.? And, I had badly underestimated how difficult
that might become.? One scheme might be to start with my CP/M-like OS,
and build a wrapper program that would allow me to run OS-360
compilers and linkers with whatever object libraries they needed, and
then use them to compile something more to my liking like Pascal.??
But, it was all looking like a LOT of work.
If I ever do another ground up machine its likely to be a OIS, a move
machine.? They are simple and can
be low parts.? They are the RISC of the RISC.
As to chip based the list is [6100, 6120, 9900, 8080, 8085, 8086, z80,
1802, SC/MP, SC/MPII-8073,
6800, 6809, 6502, T-11] as they say long.?? Some I still use namely
8039,? 8085, z80, and 1802 and on
occasion the 6100 (cmos pdp8).? with older CPUs and newer memory the
resulting machines are
interesting and often fast for their type.? Things like large megabyte
Flash makes cp/m without physical
disk remarkably fast (large flash as disk) and simple.
I still run several CP/M machines (S100 and single board plus Kaypro
4/84++) and the PDP11 is mostly running
RT11 but on occasion I load up V6 Unix RL02 pack.? The vaxs are a small
(10way LAVC) mostly running
VMS5.4H.
So, I managed to clone a Nat. Semi 32016 system and
got it running,
but it was amazingly slow.
I suspect that my kluged memory interface was not fully optimal, but
even the original that I copied was pretty slow.? Then, I spent BIG
BUCKS to buy a uVAX-II CPU board from a broker, and was finally in HOG
HEAVEN!? It was certainly fast, almost the speed of the VAX-780's I
used at work, and ALL MINE!
I have the luxury of being there and leading edge for Altair by time 79
rolled around I was PDP11
and would later work in DEC engineering.? By the late 80s I had a nice
PDP11/23 of my own and
not long after a collection of VAX systems that I have to this day.? To
this day VMS is the OS in my
mind though Unix V6, V7(PDP11) and Ultrix(VAX) are around fro the DEC
hardware and Linux on
the desktop.
My idea of doing stuff is a Rpi-3B running a copy of linux on batteries
as a full boat laptop machine.
The Rpi may not be lightning in a bottle but its posting this email!??
What to I do for fun 8039,
PIC or Atmega328P for embedded projects.? One of these days a laptop
running RT11 on one of
the T-11s (PDP-11 chip) I have would be a eye catcher, I'll have to make
the terminal/screen
from a Atmega as hardware for modern LCDs of any sizes
and resolution
(aka 80x24) needs a
lot of hardware to do that.
So, that's my story.
Mine is at best a few snapshots in time.
Allison
Jon
24 Oct
24 Oct
12:48 p.m.
New subject: NOVApalooza in 2 weeks - DG Nova - was Re: 70's computers
On 2018-10-24 12:57 p.m., Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:
On 10/24/2018 08:13 AM, allison via cctalk wrote:
Yep. (Letter posted by Bruce Ray) https://imgur.com/a/ZeED5bL
On 10/23/2018 05:32 PM, Gordon Henderson via
cctalk wrote:
Yeah, basically a PDP-8 with a wider word.? No surprise, Edson De Castro
designed the PDP-8 first, at DEC, before creating Data General.? And, it On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:
Why not the Data General Nova,? 16bits and fairly simple.
The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking? for
simpler designs
where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user
software.
Try the Modular One with an OS written in BCPL.
https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/files/3230/PRG08.pdf
Although that paper suggest 32K of core.
-Gordon retained all the horrible things about the PDP-8 that
I hated.
Jon
So you won't be at NOVApalooza then? It's not too late to sign up:
http://www.novapalooza.org/
--Toby
1 p.m.
New subject: NOVApalooza in 2 weeks - DG Nova - was Re: 70's computers
So you won't be at NOVApalooza then? It's not
too late to sign up:
http://www.novapalooza.org/
When: October 22-24, 2018
How was it?
2:06 p.m.
New subject: NOVApalooza in 2 weeks - DG Nova - was Re: 70's computers
On 2018-10-24 2:00 p.m., Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
Oops! I read the subject line and not the dates...
So you won't be at NOVApalooza then?
It's not too late to sign up:
http://www.novapalooza.org/
When: October 22-24, 2018
How was it?
4:55 p.m.
New subject: NOVApalooza in 2 weeks - DG Nova - was Re: 70's computers
It just ended. I made a crap video (no people in it) that Bruce needs
to screen before I post to Youtube, however, there was a video team
that shot an enormous amount of 4K footage. Bruce does not quite know
what to do with it, but figured it needed recording.
--
Will
On Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 1:00 PM Al Kossow via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
So you won't be at NOVApalooza then?
It's not too late to sign up:
http://www.novapalooza.org/
When: October 22-24, 2018
How was it?
10:56 p.m.
New subject: 70's computers
On 10/24/2018 12:01 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
On 10/24/18 8:57 AM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:
Yes, and the accumulators could hold
addresses, which was a
big plus.
But, still, storing the subroutine return address in the
first location of the subroutine.
Ugh, how 1960's that was!
Jon
Yeah, basically a PDP-8 with a wider word.
Four accumulators, and no memory pages
23 Oct
23 Oct
6:04 p.m.
New subject: Hyperland and Doctor Who (Was: 70's computers
>> Modern computers are just to play with on the
web and read mail and
>> download DR WHO.
> Remember when "personal" computers were on a par with model trains for
> "practicality" and "usefulness".
> I've got the Doctor Who MP4 files on a SATA III drive plugged into a
> Seagate GoFlex-TV streamer.
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:
Since this is the CLASSIC **** LIST I only watch the
70's Dr Who :)
Not sure, then, how to categorize "Shada". It was a [Tom Baker] Doctor
Who story, written by Douglas Adams. It was being filmed in 1979,
intended to air in the first couple of months in 1980. But, a labor
strike caused it to not get completed.
I'd call that "70's".
In 2003?, a reconstruction was done, to complete it, using narration by
Tom Baker to fill in the missing pieces. Is that still "70's"?
Later, in 2017, it was reconstructed again, using animation for the
missing scenes. That was released on DVD in UK almost a year ago.
The USA release was delayed until last month, and played once on BBC
America. Amazon.uk has had it available on DVD for a year; amazon.com
(USA) should have it about now. Is that still "70's"?
There were a LOT of Doctor Who episodes that got lost. At one time,
videotape was more valuable for re-use than the expected unlikelihood of
further re-runs. When it became profitable, BBC began reconstruction from
VHS, re-transcoding from overseas copies, random archeological finds, etc.
A major project. There are still quite a few unaccounted for.
Consider: how would you recolourise something being reconstructed from B&W
16mm film? Besides manual and/or computer assisted Turner style
recolorization, they developed ways to recolourise working from artifacts,
such as the B&W 16mm film being high enough resolution to be able to
differentiate the grey images of the RGB pixels of the colour screen that
it was filmed from!
OB_ON-Topic: In 1991, Douglas Adams, Ted nelson, and Tom Baker made a
pre-WWW (or at least before WWW became popular) 25 minute BBC documentary
about what the internet would become, called "Hyperland". None of the
high-quality studio copies are extant. I talked to Ted Nelson last week;
he has/had a studio VHS somewhere, but can't find it; leaving the mediocre
ones on WWW, such as archive.org, as the only ones. He asked me whether I
could digitize VHS; I assured him that I would improve my capability for
such, or have it done commercially. "Hyperland" is NOT available
commercially in any format.
Last year, I created an .SRT file for it!
It is now FINALLY possible to watch "Hyperland" with captions/subtitles!
I needed a lot of help from a friend with good hearing, but we got it
done!
(copies available on request)
(caption .SRT files consist of an arbitrary sequence number (like last
columns on a punch-card), a start and stop time, and lines of text. When
actually used as NTSC closed captions, the text is transmitted as two
bytes at a time in line 21 of the verticsl retrace interval)
I use ANYDVD and Handbrake to transcode MY DVDs to MP4, always with
captions/subtitles. So far, all of mine fit [now barely] on a 7mm SATA
2TB drive out of a Seagate "Backup Plus Slim", which fits into Seagate
GoFlex-TV.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
6:12 p.m.
New subject: Hyperland and Doctor Who (Was: 70's computers
Later, in 2017, it [Shada] was reconstructed again,
using animation for
the missing
scenes. That was released on DVD in UK almost a year ago.
The USA release was delayed until last month, and played once on BBC America.
Amazon.uk has had it available on DVD for a year; amazon.com (USA) should
have it about now. Is that still "70's"?
Correction: the USA release of Shada (with animated reconstruction) has
been further delayed. AGAIN. to November 6.
But, Amazon.co.uk has it available:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Shada-Blu-ray-Region-Free/dp/B0767QDRBJ/ref…
The 1992/2013 narration reconstruction is available from amazon.com.
6:29 a.m.
On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 18:58, Rick Bensene via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Liam Proven wrote:
<snip>
I think you are missing my point so far that you're looking in the
opposite direction.
On the one hand, the cosmetics. *Every* Unix
desktop out there draws
on Win95.
I take exception to the "*Every*" in Liam's statement above. Replacing "Unix" with "Linux"
would make the statement more correct.
How many graphical Unix desktops are sold or distributed in the world
today that are not Linux? Excluding Mac OS X as I specifically address
that point, I think.
I can think of _one_ modern desktop that isn't a Linux one -- the
Lumina desktop of TrueOS (i.e. FreeBSD.) Guess what -- it's a Win95
clone.
X-Windows-based desktop metaphor UI's existed
within the Unix world long before Win95 came on the scene.
That is _precisely my point_. There are _dozens_ of counter-examples,
that is, non-Windows-like desktops from before Win95, and _none_ has
any measurable modern impact today. Apart from Mac OS X going its own
way, basically every other desktop still in active development or
still being distributed today is Win95-like.
Exceptions: Budgie, GNOME 3, Elementary OS' Pantheon -- all broadly
Mac OS X-like.
I would also note that Budgie and Pantheon are both derivatives of
GNOME 3, as was the now-effectively-dead Ubuntu Unity.
The whole desktop metaphor UI existed long before
Windows 95 in non-Unix implementations by Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) with the
pioneering Xerox Alto, introduced in 1973, which implemented Alan Kay's concepts for
the desktop metaphor that were postulated in 1970 using Smalltalk as the core operating
system.
That, again, *was the point I was trying to make*.
We used to have a ton of prior art and alternative designs, and today,
they have all gone, with basically no impact.
Windows 95, and the earlier versions of
Microsoft's desktop metaphor UI's, were patterned after these implementations.
Microsoft simply took concepts that already existed in the world of UI design, and made
their own implementation based on those concepts.
Whereas this is at its reductio-ad-absurdam core true, it misses the point.
If you strip this down to a comparison of the elements that all
desktops have in common, then there's nothing left to compare.
Yes, it all came out of Xerox... although of course Xerox learned from
Englebart, Sketchpad, etc.
But what matters are the _differences_.
Apple has created 3 main desktop UIs (setting aside the Newton, iPod, iOS etc.)
* Lisa OS
* classic MacOS (note, no space)
* Mac OS X (note, space), now styled macOS (note capitalisation).
Lisa OS went nowhere much, but the Mac is clearly strongly derived
from it (although MacOS was a very profoundly different
OS.)
Lisa OS and MacOS both contained numerous innovations which nobody had
done before. From memory -- I welcome correction...
* a global menu bar in a fixed location
* standardised menu entries, with strict rules for naming them (e.g.
File/Edit/View/etc, restriction to single words only)
* standardised dialog boxes, with standardised names, in a standardised order
(trivial example:
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Do_It.txt
)
* standarised window decorations in fixed positions
* fixed restricted meanings for desktop icons, which were themselves
limited in function)
* menus shared between apps (e.g. the Apple menu)
Apple took the somewhat nebulous ideas of Xerox PARC -- of a system
for programmers, with Smalltalk visible and so on -- cut them down to
something implementable and standardised and controlled them until
they were much easier and simpler.
It discarded stuff Jobs and his lieutenants didn't get. No Smalltalk,
no interpreter or programming exposed to the user, no built-in
networking or network functionality. It cut it down to compiled apps
with distinct functionality and a strictly controlled unified UI,
running cooperatively in a single shared desktop UI.
Compare to the early Alto and its kind: UI was wildly varied, might be
textual, might not, and there was no uniformity between apps.
But the Lisa with its "templates" and multitasking and so on was too
complex and too expensive. So this was cut-down even further to the
Mac.
Much of what we take for granted in UIs today comes either direct from
the Mac, or from systems designed soon after the Mac which were either
consciously aping it, or were avoiding it and inventing non-Mac-like
ways to do things so as to avoid Apple lawsuits.
DR GEM put drive icons on the desktop. Apple sued. DR removed them
(from the PC version). Microsoft, fighting shy, had no drive icons.
Windows 1/2/3 had an empty desktop unless you first opened and then
minimised some windows.
Win95 came up with "my computer", an entirely virtual folder, and in
there were the drive icons -- so it did not infringe Apple's patents.
As it happens it thus recreated the non-infringing method DR had
invented, but made it more rigorous.
You can itemise a list of the elements of a Mac-like desktop:
* global menu bar
* drive icons on the desktop
* trashcan on the desktop
* single iconic spatial filer
* filer windows are flat and contain only a grid of icons for their contents
* to get at subfolders, a new window is opened by double-clicking on a
folder icon in a parent window
* standardised dialog boxes, which are modal and forcibly constrain
interaction to simple choices
... etc.
DR GEM copied this (and got sued, but it didn't affect ST GEM), but
tweaked it: menu bar entries are drop-down not pull down -- you mouse
over them, they pop open on their own, without a click.
This wasn't enough and it got sued.
Amiga OS copied this but tweaked it: the menu bar only appears when
you right-click at the top of the screen.
Somehow this was enough.
Microsoft, leery of litigation, avoided copying it and pointedly did
things differently:
* no desktop icons
* filer was list-oriented, fixed 2 pane design
* menu bars were inside app windows, and to hell with Fitt's Law
* window controls were rearranged
Just 3-4 years after the Mac, rather than the year or 2 that the ST
and Amiga came out, later companies also carefully heeded the Apple
example, because of the DR lawsuit, and pointedly did things
differently.
* NeXT carefully avoided it in NeXTstep.
* Acorn also avoided it in RISC OS.
This stuff isn't coincidence. These things didn't just happen.
Now, look at the UIs that appeared _after_ the Mac.
* all have strict interface guidelines
* all have standardised menu bars in standardised places with
standardised entries
* all have standardised dialog boxes with standardised buttons in
standardised places
* all have their own fixed filer design, usually non-iconic
This stuff matters. The signs and trends are there and very clear. But
almost nobody looks at it, they just mouth empty platitudes like "MS
stole from Apple but Apple stole it from Xerox anyway".
That's not really true, it neglects a _ton_ of important, incremental
work. But that stuff all gets dismissed.
Now back to your argument.
Consider a few of the post-Mac but pre-Win95 desktops. That means the
mid to end 1980s and early 1990s.
* HP VUE
* Open Group CDE -- now FOSS, which I've written about:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/09/cde_goes_opensource/
* Sun OPEN LOOK & SunView
* IRIX Indigo Magic / Interactive Desktop
* HP NewWave
* Xerox ViewPoint / GlobalView
* as previously mentioned, NeXTstep and Acorn Risc OS
(You see, I have been paying attention, for, oh, 35 years or so now.)
Now, I can point to 3 living (FSVO "living") descendants of those OSes:
* CDE is now FOSS
(It had a conceptual re-implementation, the XForms Common Environment,
XFCE. Here's a screenshot:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Xfce3.jpg
Note, it has now moved to a Windows-like model)
AFAIK no current or historical full-function general-purpose Linux
offers CDE as a desktop choice.
* NeXTstep inspired GNUstep
http://www.gnustep.org/
(and LiteStep but that's now dead)
No current or historical full-function general-purpose Linux offers
GNUstep as a desktop choice.
* Risc OS inspired the ROX Desktop:
http://rox.sourceforge.net/desktop/
Again, no current or historical full-function general-purpose Linux
offers ROX as a desktop choice.
That's it.
I am aware of some now-dead historical ones. I believe there was a
Mac-like Linux desktop called, I think, Sparta, but it's so long-dead
I can't Google up any trace of it.
There was AmiWM, an AmigaOS-like window manager, but it's not a full
desktop. There are MorphOS and AROS but they're relatively obscure and
are separate OSes.
There _was_ an attempt to reproduce the IRIX Magic desktop but it
never got anywhere and is AFAIK now dead:
http://5dwm.org/
BeOS used the Windows model. OS/2 Warp made the WPS more CDE-like with
a launcher, but Warp 4 made that Win95-like.
So, current active FOSS desktop environments.
* KDE -- Win9x model
* Trinity, fork of KDE 3 -- Win9x model
* Cinnamon, fork of GNOME 3 -- Win9x model
* Xfce -- Win9x model
* LXDE -- Win9x model
* LXQt -- Qt-based continuation of LXDE; Win9x model
* Mat?, fork of GNOME 2 -- Win9x model
* Enlightenment -- Win9x model
* Moksha, fork of E17 -- Win9x model
Let's be generous and look at a few simple window managers!
* IceWM, fallback option in SUSE: Win9x model
* Fvwm95, as used in RH when I first got into Linux -- Win9x model
FreeBSD! Let's not limit ourselves to Linux!
* Lumina -- Win9x model
Let's broaden it past Unix.
* BeOS (& Zeta) and Haiku -- Win9x model
Or let's look beyond FOSS!
* QNX Neutrino Photon -- Win9x model
Are you starting to see what I mean now?
I would also add that GNOME 2 followed the Win9x model, and only
changed after Microsoft threatened to sue. I have examined this in
some depth here:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/03/thank_microsoft_for_linux_desktop_…
Outside of Apple, I think it is fair to say that no new OS or desktop
environment since 1995 has used anything other than the Win95 model.
The fact that there are a small handful of clones of the Apple Mac OS
X GUI doesn't really invalidate this point.
A couple of FOSS copies of proprietary 1980s OSes attempt to re-create
pre-Win95 desktops.
Every pre-Win95 Unix desktop _or FOSS clone thereof_ is dead or as
good as dead, with few active commits and no distributions offering
it as a desktop choice.
Don't get me wrong. I do not think this is a good thing.
I think this is _tragic_ and wish to reverse that trend.
There used to be, as you say, wide diversity in OS and desktop design.
Now it has all gone. Win95 swept all before it, and unless you are
about half a century old, you have probably never seen a desktop that
isn't Win95-like unless it's Apple or a copy of Apple.
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
7:10 a.m.
I?ll throw in my two cents to say that I?ve used a fair number of GUIs over the years both
commercially available and FOSS, and I?d say that Windows 95?s UI blew the doors off of
anything I?d used up that point in terms of usability. Nobody IMO can fairly compare it
with the previously available X based desktops. The Mac was good, the Amiga was good, but
there was a lot more flexibility in how Win95 operated, and that?s probably why (along
with familiarity) that it has been so oft copied up to this point (Mac OS X?s UI
notwithstanding, which is also quite good).
7:13 a.m.
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 13:11, Geoffrey Oltmans <oltmansg at gmail.com> wrote:
I?ll throw in my two cents to say that I?ve used a fair number of GUIs over the years
both commercially available and FOSS, and I?d say that Windows 95?s UI blew the doors off
of anything I?d used up that point in terms of usability. Nobody IMO can fairly compare it
with the previously available X based desktops. The Mac was good, the Amiga was good, but
there was a lot more flexibility in how Win95 operated, and that?s probably why (along
with familiarity) that it has been so oft copied up to this point (Mac OS X?s UI
notwithstanding, which is also quite good).
I'd go with that, actually, yes.
My personal favourite in recent years was Ubuntu's Unity, which is a
better Mac OS X than Mac OS X (IMHO).
But the fact that I like it and am comfy with it doesn't mean that I
don't want to see people trying to do something different...
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
11:58 a.m.
On 10/23/2018 06:13 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
My personal favourite in recent years was Ubuntu's
Unity,
which is a better Mac OS X than Mac OS X (IMHO).
ARRGhhh! I HATE Unity! I have
switched all my Ubuntu
systems to gnome-classic, which suits me fine.
(You have to hack the theme xml file to make the borders
wide enough to grab and stretch.)
I lasted about 4 hours with Unity. I am a spatial thinker,
I want all my icons and toolbar icons to STAY PUT, I grab
them by position, not by searing for the picture (icon) I
want to select.
Jon
12:49 p.m.
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 17:58, Jon Elson <elson at pico-systems.com> wrote:
ARRGhhh! I HATE Unity! I have switched all my
Ubuntu
systems to gnome-classic, which suits me fine.
(You have to hack the theme xml file to make the borders
wide enough to grab and stretch.)
I lasted about 4 hours with Unity. I am a spatial thinker,
I want all my icons and toolbar icons to STAY PUT, I grab
them by position, not by searing for the picture (icon) I
want to select.
I am not trying to impose my choices on anyone.
I liked Unity. It was simple, quick, clear and effective.
I find GNOME 3 to be frustrating to the level of shouting incoherently
at my computer within half an hour. Ditto KDE (any version >1.x).
Others like them.
Chacun ? son go?t.
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
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12:59 p.m.
This is my issue with a lot of Linux distros they seem to try to hard to
look and work like mac or like windows while I would rather have them
look and work like the xwindows I knew and loved.? One of my biggest
aggravations is cut and paste I would very much rather it worked more
like it used to on X.
Paul.
On 2018-10-23 1:49 PM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 17:58, Jon Elson <elson at
pico-systems.com> wrote:
ARRGhhh! I HATE Unity! I have switched all my
Ubuntu
systems to gnome-classic, which suits me fine.
(You have to hack the theme xml file to make the borders
wide enough to grab and stretch.)
I lasted about 4 hours with Unity. I am a spatial thinker,
I want all my icons and toolbar icons to STAY PUT, I grab
them by position, not by searing for the picture (icon) I
want to select.
I am not trying to impose my choices on anyone.
I liked Unity. It was simple, quick, clear and effective.
I find GNOME 3 to be frustrating to the level of shouting incoherently
at my computer within half an hour. Ditto KDE (any version >1.x).
Others like them.
Chacun ? son go?t.
1:40 p.m.
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 18:59, Paul Berger via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
This is my issue with a lot of Linux distros they seem to try to hard to
look and work like mac or like windows while I would rather have them
look and work like the xwindows I knew and loved. One of my biggest
aggravations is cut and paste I would very much rather it worked more
like it used to on X.
If you want it old-style, build it old-style.
Install the minimal or server version of Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora,
whatever you want, then install X.org and your window manager of
choice.
This is how I have been experimentally assembling GNUstep desktops for
years now.
My favourite minimalist no "desktop" /per se/ distro is Crunchbang --
you might want to look at BunsenLabs or Crunchbang++.
Another comparable option is Tiny Core Linux, but I haven't tried it myself.
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
1:47 p.m.
On 10/23/2018 10:59 AM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote:
This is my issue with a lot of Linux distros they seem
to try to hard to
look and work like mac or like windows while I would rather have them
look and work like the xwindows I knew and loved.? One of my biggest
aggravations is cut and paste I would very much rather it worked more
like it used to on X.
I don't know what we're doing differently, but am and have been using
what I know to be standard X11 primary selection buffer with middle
click to paste.
I do periodically use the actual clipboard in combination with the
primary selection buffer so that I can hold two things at once.
I've also started selecting content, copying the primary selection to
the secondary buffer for part of my workflow.
Aside: Is anyone aware of anything that uses the secondary selection
buffer.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
1:50 p.m.
On 23/10/2018, Geoffrey Oltmans via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote (in part):
I?d say that Windows 95?s UI blew the doors off of
anything I?d used up that
point in terms of usability.
Interesting... I recall gathering around a colleague's PC many years
ago. One of us noticed his screen and said "Hey, you switched to
OS/2." He replied, "No. Win95". It really fooled a lot of us.
N.
24 Oct
24 Oct
11:35 a.m.
Earlier, I wrote:
> The whole desktop metaphor UI existed long before
Windows 95 in non-Unix implementations by Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research >>Center)
with the pioneering Xerox Alto, introduced in 1973, which implemented Alan Kay's
concepts for the desktop metaphor that >>were postulated in 1970 using Smalltalk as
the core operating system.
To which Liam P. responded:
That, again, *was the point I was trying to make*.
We used to have a ton of prior art and alternative
designs, and today,
they have all gone, with basically no impact.
I get the point, now.
I was looking at it more from a historical standpoint than from the view of /today/. I
totally agree with Liam as far as every other desktop paradigm prior to Win95 is dead from
a practical standpoint, except possibly the (and it can be debated) the Apple desktop
environment.
I believe that the history of the desktop metaphor prior to Win95 certainly had an impact
on the development of the Win95 desktop environment, and those concepts carry through to
today, but in terms of desktop UIs created after Win95, I can't argue that any
aren't derivatives of the Win95 environment.
-Rick
12:08 p.m.
On Wed, 24 Oct 2018 at 17:35, Rick Bensene <rickb at bensene.com> wrote:
Earlier, I wrote:
Oh good. I am relieved. :-)
For clarity, for example -- GNOME 3 isn't Win95-like. But it was
designed by removing the bits MS said were its patented IP -- taskbar
with buttons for each app window, start menu, etc. -- and replacing
them with a dock-like app launcher/switcher and a full-screen iconic
app launcher.
It's also very instructive to look at the mockups of GNOME 3 before release:
http://www.vuntz.net/journal/post/2008/10/22/494-desktop-shell-from-the-use…
https://wiki.gnome.org/ThreePointZero/DesignHistory
https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShell/Design/Iterations/AppBrowsingAlt…
https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShell/Design/Iterations/AppBrowsingAlt…
Very text-heavy and cluttered.
Then the test versions of Unity started to appear in late 2010:
http://www.webupd8.org/2011/03/ubuntu-1104-alpha-3-is-out-screenshots.html
Then look how GNOME 3.0 looked!
https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1123050/
https://www.gnome-look.org/s/Gnome/p/1111022/
Unity, of course, is very visibly Mac OS X-like. Single panel at the
top, containing an app name at the left, then a global menu bar, then
status icons. Down the left, a Dock-like launcher containing both app
launchers and running apps (with an indicator to show they're open),
folder shortcuts and minimised windows. OS X defaults to putting this
at the bottom but I personally move it to the left -- more efficient
use of space on widescreens, and doesn't clash with menu bars on the
right. Window controls are on the left, so that if a window is
maximised, they don't get lose in among the indicators on the right...
but again, like on a Mac.
(NeXT's dock was on the right, but then its scrollbars were on the
left. There was also a wharf for minimised windows at the bottom,
which is a bit confusing.)
To keep things a _little_ different from OS X, Ubuntu's app name is
truncated, the global menus are hidden until mouseover, and the dock
doesn't grow or shrink, but these are fairly superficial differences.
The GNOME foundation refused Ubuntu's attempted code contributions,
but I think that it's visible that they took design cues from Unity.
But GNOME is trying to do something a little different. There's an
almost frantic effort to remove anything which isn't essential.
Generic app-global functions are moved into a single menu in the top
panel; there's no global menu bar. The launcher/dock thing is only
visible in overview mode, in other words, more aggressively hidden
than mere autohide. Maximise/minimise buttons are hidden by default,
and menu bars are discouraged, as are separate toolbars and separate
title bars -- all are merged into a single strip.
This is a desktop for people who don't do much window management. The
tooling is for people who run apps full-screen all the time, and
switch between them.
I don't work like that, so it annoys me.
But I digress.
I think the points here are two-fold:
[1] There is one extant FOSS Linux desktop that's totally
un-Windows-like... but the influence, albeit 2nd-hand, of the Mac is
plainly visible. Additionally, it was created by removing elements of
a Win95-style desktop and changing the functions of what was left, and
it shows.
[2] The eventual relative popularity of GNOME 3 at least demonstrates
people's willingness to _try_ something different if there are
benefits.
Budgie, TBH, I don't understand. I don't know why it exists.
It's basically a very jiggered-about Win9x desktop, with a sort of
top-panel-cum-taskbar and a dock bolted on. It does nothing you
couldn't achieve far easier by reconfiguring Xfce or LXDE, so I don't
know why they bothered. It seems to me to offer no benefits or
improvements. It's just a bit of a different spin on GNOME 3, making
it slightly more Mac-like, without being Mac-like enough to interest
me. :-)
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
> The whole desktop metaphor UI existed long
before Windows 95 in non-Unix implementations by Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research
>>Center) with the pioneering Xerox Alto, introduced in 1973, which implemented
Alan Kay's concepts for the desktop metaphor that >>were postulated in 1970
using Smalltalk as the core operating system.
To which Liam P. responded:
That, again, *was the point I was trying to make*.
We used to have a ton of prior art and alternative
designs, and today,
they have all gone, with basically no impact.
I get the point, now.
I was looking at it more from a historical standpoint than from the view of /today/. I
totally agree with Liam as far as every other desktop paradigm prior to Win95 is dead from
a practical standpoint, except possibly the (and it can be debated) the Apple desktop
environment.
I believe that the history of the desktop metaphor prior to Win95 certainly had an impact
on the development of the Win95 desktop environment, and those concepts carry through to
today, but in terms of desktop UIs created after Win95, I can't argue that any
aren't derivatives of the Win95 environment.
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