[inforoots] GUIs and glass teletypes

[Carl Baltrunas]

On May 10, 2005, at 3:23 PM, Stan Sieler wrote:
> There'a an article about the history of GUIs in Ars Technica, at
> http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/gui.ars
>
> However, examining the accompanying graph at
> http://media.arstechnica.com/images/gui/guitimeline.jpg
> made me wonder ... what about glass teletypes?
>
> It seems to me that there's a critical piece missing from most GUI
> histories: the impact of CRTs, as in "glass teletypes", on the 
> development
> of the GUI (including the impact of UCSD Pascal's user interface).
>
The author of that article states at the beginning...
"I’ll be presenting a brief introduction to the history of the GUI. The 
topic, as you might expect, is broad, and very deep. This article will 
touch on the high points, while giving an overview of GUI development."

I guess that is what allows him to skip a lot of detail, and other 
influences.

> I.e., moving to a CRT terminal (not graphics yet) led to a
> conceptual breakthrough:
>
>    text / information doesn't have to be presented in a linear fashion,
>    or in a manner where it scrolls out of sight.
>
> (Many CRT teminals had cursor positioning that allowed information to
> be placed at arbitrary locations, and some had the ability to say
> "don't scroll this away")

The author does leave a lot out.

No mention dumb of glass terminals, let alone the Hazeltine or SuperBee 
  terminals which had protected areas which could be used to create 
forms and then interact with the user to fill in those (sometimes 
multi-page) forms.  Often these forms were the GUI, and when a return 
or send key was pressed, only the data in the unprotected fields was 
sent back to the computer as a single burst-mode record.

No mention of full-screen editors, especially Emacs, that had several 
modes which were interfaces to other commonly used programs such as 
(^R) RMAIL, or even directory/file management, all done in full-screen 
mode -- with split screens for multiple windows and the like.  (Other 
editors were SED, TVEDIT, VTECO ...)

No mention any of the mainframe full-screen glass terminals on IBM, or 
DEC's graphic displays (PDP-11 GT-40/VR-14/VR-17).

At Tymshare, they had an additional issue with deferred echo of user 
entered typing by either the network node or the host, often connected 
on opposite positions on the globe.  On the IBM systems they had a 
network interface that reduced actual data transmissions across the 
network by building a change-log and propagating only the changes each 
direction, yet the display and the computer at either end saw a full 
screen image sent or displayed as a single block-mode full screen 
send/repaint.

No mention of the curses library or the termcap files used by 
everything to determine the capabilities of a user interface (terminal, 
batch job, display, etc.)... which are (believe it or not) still in use 
today on various versions of UNIX and derived works.

>
> Did this have an affect on GUI development?

You bet!  I've been involved with a lot of UI, and any prior work done 
on paper, then glass, then graphical always had some influence on the 
modern GUI, which is still in flux with the changes from data entry to 
interactive forms to full multimedia interfaces, including home 
entertainment systems and DVRs.  Even text mode windows, such as the 
on-screen programming of VCRs and other household items are influenced 
by what has come before.
>
> Aside from Englebart and his radar background, I wonder if most GUI
> developers were first exposed to "glass teletypes"?

Hard to say.  I was.

I saw ASCII-art on ham radio rtty transmissions with overprinting, then 
computer printouts and model 33 and 35 teletypes before finally seeing 
my first display console, the Hazeltine 2000.  My entire career has 
been focused on user interfaces from plain interactive Q&A to dynamic 
web pages.

I was also one of the lucky ones who saw Doug Englebart's office 
automation project running on DEC PDP-10s and Foonly F4s at Tymshare 
and McDonnell Douglas.  I shared a cubicle wall with Bill Frantz who 
worked for Doug's Augment group.  I Think Doug's license plate used to 
say AUGMENT even if it doesn't say that now.

BTW, the author did not really provide any updates to what Doug's group 
did other than mentioning his great start, and then funding drying up 
after 1989.  I think he missed a few other highlights too.

-Carl
>
> Stan
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