https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41478088
DonHopkins 11 months ago | parent | context | favorite | on: The PERQ Computer
The predecessor to the "Blit" at Bell Labs was originally named the "Jerq" as a rude play on "Perq" borrowed by permission from Lucasfilm, and the slogan was "A Jerq at Every Desk".
PERQ workstation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PERQ
Blit (computer terminal):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blit_(computer_terminal)
>The folk etymology for the Blit name is that it stands for Bell Labs Intelligent Terminal, and its creators have also joked that it actually stood for Bacon, Lettuce, and Interactive Tomato. However, Rob Pike's paper on the Blit explains that it was named after the second syllable of bit blit, a common name for the bit-block transfer operation that is fundamental to the terminal's graphics.[2] Its original nickname was Jerq, inspired by a joke used during a demo of a Three Rivers' PERQ graphic workstation and used with permission.
https://inbox.vuxu.org/tuhs/CAKzdPgz37wwYfmHJ_7kZx_T=-zwNJ50...
From: Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com>
To: Norman Wilson <norman@oclsc.org>
Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Blit source
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2019 11:26:47 +1100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAKzdPgz37wwYfmHJ_7kZx_T=-zwNJ50PhS7r0kCpuf_F1mDkww@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1576714621.27293.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
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Your naming isn't right, although the story otherwise is accurate.
The Jerq was the original name for the 68K machines hand-made by Bart. The
name, originally coined for a fun demo of the Three Rivers Perq by folks at
Lucasfilm, was borrowed with permission by us but was considered unsuitable
by Sam Morgan as we reached out to make some industrially, by a company
(something Atlantic) on Long Island. So "Blit" was coined. The Blit name
later stuck unofficially to the DMD-5620, which was made by Teletype and,
after some upheavals, had a Western Electric BellMac 32000 CPU.
If 5620s were called Jerqs, it was an accident. All the software with that
name would be for the original, Locanthi-built and -designed 68K machines.
The sequence is thus Jerq, Blit, DMD-5620. DMD stood for dot-mapped rather
than bit-mapped, but I never understood why. It seemed a category error to
me.
-rob
https://inbox.vuxu.org/tuhs/CAKzdPgxreqfTy+55qc3-Yx5zZPVVwOW... The original name was Jerq, which was first the name given by friends at
Lucasfilm to the Three Rivers PERQ workstations they had, for which the
Pascal-written software and operating system were unsatisfactory. Bart
Locanthi and I (with Greg Chesson and Dave Ditzel?) visited Lucasfilm in
1981 and we saw all the potential there with none of the realization. My
personal aha was that, as on the Alto, only one thing could be running at a
time and that was a profound limitation. When we began to design our answer
to these problems a few weeks later, we called Lucasfilm to ask if they
minded us borrowing their excellent rude name, and they readily agreed.
Our slogan: A jerq at every desk.
