Blit

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"In computing, the Blit is a programmable bitmap graphics terminal designed by Rob Pike and Bart Locanthi of Bell Labs in 1982."

 Bell Labs: http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/blit/

(I attended a talk by Thomas Weinberger [the W in AWK] years ago. One of the things he mentioned was that AT&T had a prototype of the blit terminal ready to go years back. It had a bit mapped graphics screen, 2MB of RAM, and a Motorola 680X0 chip to drive it. It would have revolutionized computing. It was ready to go to manufacture when someone noticed the Motorola CPU, and said "Not Invented Here! Thou shalt redesign it to use the WE32000 CPU *we* designed and sell!" By the time that effort was completed, other companies had their own products like it on the market, and the AT&T device never did gain any market share. That was unfortunately typical of AT&T's attempts at the computer business. --DMcCunney)


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