[net.rumor] blit

aps (03/14/83)

How about the "Bell Labs Intelligent Terminal"; a.k.a. The Jerk!
	aps.

mmt (03/20/83)

One of the BLIT team has pointed out that BLIT does NOT mean
"Bell Labs Intelligent Terminal" or anything else. It is not
an acronym at all, but derives from an old instruction on another
machine that has a function much used in the BLIT. So BLIT should
be Blit (Not all CAPS).

hanss (03/23/83)

I saw Rob Pike's talks at January and July Usenix '82 on the blt, where
he claimed the name was derived from the block transfer instruction of
the DG Nova.  Now I worked for DG for several years, and I am quite
familiar with the Nova's instruction set.  There is no such
instruction.  In fact, when DG finally did add a block transfer
instruction (in the Eclipse line) they called it 'BLM'  (pronounced
'blam', obviously).  I suspect the name comes from Xerox PARC's
microcode implementation of a Nova look alike on the Alto, where such
an instruction did exist.

Those familiar with raster graphics hacking will appreciate the
usefulness of a block transfer instruction, thus the name...

				-Hans Spiller
				decvax!microso!hanss

guy (03/25/83)

I suspect the "bitblt" instruction name on the Alto further derived from
the "blt" block transfer instruction on the PDP-10, which PARC had/has
some of.  (I think MAXC is one, running Tenex; I've seen several Xerox
people with addresses that include PARC-MAXC out there - is this correct?)

Actually, I thought they called it BLIT because it stood for nothing and
it would fool people into thinking it stood for Bell Labs Intelligent
Terminal...

					Guy Harris
					RLG Corporation
					seismo!rlgvax!guy

lee (03/25/83)

Actually, PARC doesn't have a PDP-10-- they built a look-alike because
Xerox won't let them buy a DEC product!

=lee