Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!mit-eddie!bu-cs!encore!cloud9!cme
From: cme@cloud9.Stratus.COM (Carl Ellison)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: PHIGS early history?
Message-ID: <4717@cloud9.Stratus.COM>
Date: 7 Apr 89 04:39:50 GMT
References: <7685@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc., Marlboro, MA
Lines: 48

In article <7685@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, garry@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Garry Wiegand as guest) writes:
> We are trying to track down the early design history of Phigs and 
> get it straight.
    . . .
> 
> I don't know how the IBM/RPI work and the Megatek work fits into this, 
> or who/when the real designers were.
> 
> Can anyone who was there in the early days fill us in on the designers,
> the basic chronology, and the first implementations of PHIGS? How did 
> it really happen?  (merci)

Check with Rich Ehlers at Evans & Sutherland.  I believe he's still there.
He was the E&S representative on the committee.

From our point of view, at E&S at the time, PHIGS was very strongly influenced
by the PS300 data structure and interface.  Since I was the principal
designer of that data structure, even though I've never used PHIGS
I think of it fondly, as a grandson.

For info on the PS300, you can get manuals from E&S (I believe the
machine is still on the market).  You can also get an overview of it
in Foley & van Dam. (sp?)

The PS300 was started in 1979 and first shipped in 1981.  The prototype
was up and running in 1980, with the data structure nearly complete in
early 1981 but periodically augmented by E&S developers after that.

The PS300 differed from earlier graphics devices in that instead of
the MOVETO-DRAWTO programming model it supported the notion of the program
building a structured geometric model which, almost as an afterthought,
was continually displayed.  That M.O. was an outgrowth of the graphics
system I used on the TX-2 in 1966-69.  That graphics system was designed
and implemented by people of Adams Associates.  I wasn't there for that
original design, so you'll have to track down people who remember the
really old days (TX-2 before 1966).  I'll bet that the strongest
influence on that graphics system design was Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad
(1963?) also done on the TX-2, which brings the idea full circle from Ivan
back to Ivan.  However, I can't say that for a fact.  If Marie Morello
is on the net, she might know the TX-2 graphics system origins.

In any case, check with Rich...

Enjoy,


--Carl Ellison                      UUCP::  cme@cloud9.Stratus.COM
SNail:: Stratus Computer; 55 Fairbanks Blvd.; Marlborough MA 01752
Disclaimer::  (of course)