4 ms·

Here’s something I’ve been pondering: how did the first window managers visually fail when a program hung or had a fault? With older Windows version, you got p

by xattt 5y ago

Here’s something I’ve been pondering: how did the first window managers visually fail when a program hung or had a fault? With older Windows version, you got pretty GDI “trails” as you dragged a window around. Now you get blanked out elements. For some reason, I thought that something like Plan 9 would have been flawlessly written (like their CLI counterparts) and that it would be immune to visual issues like that.

pram 5y ago
Nextstep did exactly what MacOS does today with the pinwheel of death.
- codpiece 5y ago
  I have a color turbo. Wonderful. Nearly useless, but wonderful. I would like a Cube so that I can relive the wonder of its release at a Seybold tradeshow way back when I was early in my career.
  - technothrasher 5y ago
    At one point in the early 00’s I had twelve Cubes that I picked up for free from a company that was getting rid of them. I was flush with geek treasure, and wanted to generously share my hoard with friends. By the time I realized what I’d done, I’d give them all away. D’oh! But at least I made twelve people very happy, and I still have a big stack of Nextstep install CDs.
    - codpiece 5y ago
      Wow, that is amazing. You belong in the geek pantheon for that. Two of the defining moments for young me were seeing the NeXT Cube in action, and seeing the original introduction of Adobe Acrobat. Seems mundane now, but grasping the potential of these things was profound.
    - spitfire 5y ago
      Have any software? My Turbostation is looking for more software.
      - codpiece 5y ago
        Oh! Go here for software! http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/ http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/ Great resources and discussion board here: http://www.nextcomputers.org http://www.nextcomputers.org
        spitfire 5y ago
        Un there actually. I"m looking for the stuff you can't find there. Like Virtuoso 2.0 (freehand 5 on the Mac apparently), and other things. Really if you have any NeXT software you should make copies and share with the world.
        codpiece 5y ago
        Unfortunately, my stuff came from this site, sorry.
        spitfire 5y ago
        No worries. Some people however are hoarding rare software - software that is very likely to cease to exist once their collections fail. But refuse to share or make backups.
        bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
        It would actually be nice if the developers of these old applications would upload their source somewhere so that enthusiasts can build on them. GNUSTep is an implementation of the Openstep spec, so there's a good chance that that old software could be ported to Linux (or even OSX) without too much effort.
      - technothrasher 5y ago
p_l 5y ago
GDI "trails" are due to specific of how GDI drawing worked before WinNT6 and DWM. Specifically, applications were issuing drawing commands which were executed directly onto the framebuffer - there was no "draw into rectangle then another process will compose it", because GDI was written for systems that simply didn't have enough memory for that. Essentially the process looked like this: 1. Windows GUI system figures that a specific window (this could be everything from full application window to individual control) became visible 2. WM_PAINT (iirc) message is sent to the application, to specific window 3. the handler for WM_PAINT of the specific window is triggered (there might have been support for buffering pre-existing draws, too), and executed GDI calls to draw the component (canonically using a state pointer to associated data block with everything necessary for repaint) 4. The GDI system does the drawing directly on the graphic card (either fully in software, or through accelerated calls exposed by driver) 5. Next window that needs painting gets called etc. This meant that when the applications hanged, or simply didn't have time to process drawing requests fast enough, you ended up with "trails" due to remaining old data in framebuffer. With WinNT6+ and DWM, GDI applications each draw into their own buffer which is then composited by DWM. This means that at worst they break their own windows' contents, but not the global framebuffer.
dredmorbius 5y ago
What's particularly helpful in the case of WindowMaker (another NeXTSTEP environment, mentioned in TFA), is that the window manager itself can simply be restarted. This is / was the case for several of the early-generation window managers, including twm, fvwm, and probably a few of the *Step window managers. I suspect you might be able to pull this off with GNOME or KDE though I've not tried this in some time. When restarting WindowMaker, the "naked" windows are briefly painted (without decorations) to the display, then decorations (frame, titlebar) reappear and windows resume their status (open/closed) and remain near their positions (the decoration toggle usually means they shift down and rightwards).

by xattt 5y ago

pram 5y ago

Nextstep did exactly what MacOS does today with the pinwheel of death.

codpiece 5y ago
I have a color turbo. Wonderful. Nearly useless, but wonderful. I would like a Cube so that I can relive the wonder of its release at a Seybold tradeshow way back when I was early in my career.
- technothrasher 5y ago
  At one point in the early 00’s I had twelve Cubes that I picked up for free from a company that was getting rid of them. I was flush with geek treasure, and wanted to generously share my hoard with friends. By the time I realized what I’d done, I’d give them all away. D’oh! But at least I made twelve people very happy, and I still have a big stack of Nextstep install CDs.
  - codpiece 5y ago
    Wow, that is amazing. You belong in the geek pantheon for that. Two of the defining moments for young me were seeing the NeXT Cube in action, and seeing the original introduction of Adobe Acrobat. Seems mundane now, but grasping the potential of these things was profound.
  - spitfire 5y ago
    Have any software? My Turbostation is looking for more software.
    - codpiece 5y ago
      Oh! Go here for software! http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/ http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/ Great resources and discussion board here: http://www.nextcomputers.org http://www.nextcomputers.org
      - spitfire 5y ago
        Un there actually. I"m looking for the stuff you can't find there. Like Virtuoso 2.0 (freehand 5 on the Mac apparently), and other things. Really if you have any NeXT software you should make copies and share with the world.
        codpiece 5y ago
        Unfortunately, my stuff came from this site, sorry.
        spitfire 5y ago
        No worries. Some people however are hoarding rare software - software that is very likely to cease to exist once their collections fail. But refuse to share or make backups.
        bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
        It would actually be nice if the developers of these old applications would upload their source somewhere so that enthusiasts can build on them. GNUSTep is an implementation of the Openstep spec, so there's a good chance that that old software could be ported to Linux (or even OSX) without too much effort.
    - technothrasher 5y ago

p_l 5y ago

GDI "trails" are due to specific of how GDI drawing worked before WinNT6 and DWM. Specifically, applications were issuing drawing commands which were executed directly onto the framebuffer - there was no "draw into rectangle then another process will compose it", because GDI was written for systems that simply didn't have enough memory for that. Essentially the process looked like this: 1. Windows GUI system figures that a specific window (this could be everything from full application window to individual control) became visible 2. WM_PAINT (iirc) message is sent to the application, to specific window 3. the handler for WM_PAINT of the specific window is triggered (there might have been support for buffering pre-existing draws, too), and executed GDI calls to draw the component (canonically using a state pointer to associated data block with everything necessary for repaint) 4. The GDI system does the drawing directly on the graphic card (either fully in software, or through accelerated calls exposed by driver) 5. Next window that needs painting gets called etc. This meant that when the applications hanged, or simply didn't have time to process drawing requests fast enough, you ended up with "trails" due to remaining old data in framebuffer. With WinNT6+ and DWM, GDI applications each draw into their own buffer which is then composited by DWM. This means that at worst they break their own windows' contents, but not the global framebuffer.

dredmorbius 5y ago

What's particularly helpful in the case of WindowMaker (another NeXTSTEP environment, mentioned in TFA), is that the window manager itself can simply be restarted. This is / was the case for several of the early-generation window managers, including twm, fvwm, and probably a few of the *Step window managers. I suspect you might be able to pull this off with GNOME or KDE though I've not tried this in some time. When restarting WindowMaker, the "naked" windows are briefly painted (without decorations) to the display, then decorations (frame, titlebar) reappear and windows resume their status (open/closed) and remain near their positions (the decoration toggle usually means they shift down and rightwards).