Ah I see what you mean. I mean it’s all pixels in the end right? and pixels are primitives for guis. So then the root primitive is in actuality the gui.
I tried to use desqview but it was too slow on my 386 33mhz machine… not sure how much RAM it had back then but I recall it was the bottleneck and swapping to disk caused everything to lag.
DESQview did not do any memory management of its own, and it did not use graphics. It was entirely local and had no networking. It was famously fast. It was a DOS multitasker so it managed DOS tasks, meaning multiple slots of 640kB. On a 386 with 4MB of RAM you could have 6 full-size DOS VMs with a bit left over.
If you were a power user you could still have say a big 1-2-3 spreadsheet in EMS plus a few DOS VMs.
DESQview delegated memory management to QEMM386, and QEMM386 did not do swapping. It didn't need to.
DESQview/X was a totally different product, with a full GUI, so much bigger and slower -- and it added an optional extension that added full virtual memory with swapping to disk.
I am wondering if you are mixing up DESQview (small, fast, local) with DV/x (big, complicated, networked, had optional VM)?
Or indeed DV/x with something else altogether? OS/2 maybe?
Because if it was swapping, it wasn't DESQview, not in any normal sane config anyway. It might be possible to add DV/x VM to plain old DESQview but I never heard of anyone doing that.
I also remember the first version of Smalltalk from Digitalk that was character based and windowed. It was called Methods. I can’t seem to find any reference to it on the web now.
"Methods, our character-based Smalltalk, is now available for $79- It has all of the features of Smalltalk/V except graphics, rules, source-level debugger, and object-swapping. However, it supports color, includes the communication package, and does not require a mouse."
It was a great framework, it was my path into OOP, after learning it previously in TP 5.5 (TV was released alongside TP 6, and Borland C++ 3.0), and its design was quite pragmatic.
Sure, it was awesome, it was also my first exposure to OOP but I think for a beginner it was slightly too deep and I ended up doing things without knowing what I was doing... although they worked.
Yeah. Am I missing the point that this leans so far into being as capable as a GUI as it can, that we lose something from starting in the terminal in the first place?
I was exploring why Linux terminal environment is so powerful compared to Windows terminal. Windows is built at the kernel level to support graphics and GUI, while *nix systems are built with terminal at the core. Thus Windows historically has had way more powerful GUIs. They are two different domains of power. Each of them also trying to do what the other does better.
Interesting perspective. I've poked at the medley interlisp revival project, as well as glamorous toolkit, and cuis, but hadn't heard about most of the things you mention here. Will be investigating.
There was something similar a few years ago which ran over an ssh connection and had a zoomable ui of sorts. I can't find the link -- does this ring a bell anywhere?
I don't completely understand what is meant by "zooming", but kitty[^1] does that: you open ssh connection with `kitten ssh user@host` and pressing <C-Enter> will open another ssh pane in the same tab, you can than IIRC <C-F> to "zoom" and make tab take full window
It really is tragedy that there aren't more ZUIs in the wild. I'd love a compositor (X11 or Wayland; it's probably not just a wm) that made all windows arbitrarily zoomable, but I lack the skill to make it myself.
When I said "zooming" I was thinking of the white tethers attached to each window which would pull them back into a centre bundle. You can see what I mean here: https://changelog.com/news/a-textbased-desktop-environment-i... at the bottom left, the lines going off to a single point.
actually, by zooming out, I can still see the tethers on the windows. The ssh version was quite mind-blowing back when...
This is the same thing as the public demo back then via 'ssh vtm@netxs.online'. There are no public demo servers running now, but you can still ssh to your running vtm instance with any number of connections. In case of using MS Windows you can even get the output in a standalone GUI window via 'vtm ssh user@unixserver vtm'.
Now vtm is the same as it was running on demo servers. In the modern version, the fading effects and window shadows are disabled by default in the settings. Perhaps the fading effects were removed as unnecessary.
There were demo apps in the menu, they are still there: 'vtm --run text', 'vtm --run calc', 'vtm --run test', 'vtm --run truecolor'... You can play with it by running them directly inside the vtm desktop, by typing (or right click to paste) commands like vtm.desktop.Run({ type='calc' }) in the 'Log Monitor' command line.
People who were looking for a TTRPG in the modern setting and ended up being deeply confused and converting their entire computer environment into a powerful runic device that requires complex incantations - though maybe those folks would have been better off looking for Mage the Ascension.
The Youtube video embedded on their Github is titled "Tiling Window Manager with Drag&Drop" and from watching it, that appears to be exactly what this is. I don't know if or why it artificially constrains itself to only opening terminals.
It's scary to do something more complex than a terminal emulator until the architecture is unstable. In case of small changes we will have to rewrite a lot. You can play with a couple of built-in demo apps 'vtm --run text', 'vtm --run calc', 'vtm --run test', 'vtm --run truecolor'. You can also run it directly inside the vtm desktop by typing vtm.desktop.Run({ type='calc' }) in the command line of 'Log Monitor'.
I always wondered if it was possible to have a TUI-style window manager inside the terminal. This is a fantastic project, whoever made it did a great job.
Potentially relevant for using this vs GUI for remote access: AV1 can compress 4k+ screen casts in real time to under 500kbps while keeping text legible.
Been using Zellij for awhile and it is delightful! I am only a moderate terminal user, but I really like having some basic multiplexing features if I need them. My brain just could not hold onto the necessary tmux key combos with only intermittent use. Instead I find the Zellij commands to be more intuitive (and more discoverable thanks to the handy prompts...)
Building with gcc requires ~4Gb of RAM; clang requires ~8Gb. Due to memory requirements, building vtm for a 32-bit target is only possible using cross-compilation. In addition, cmake downloads Lua sources during the build process.
However, from my perspective, the extensive need to drag windows around and resize them is a habit of windows environment. So, perhaps, this is for the mouse what tmux and Neovim are for the keyboard.
In tmux, the window layouts I need are fixed sets of 2x2 panes, with some predefined ways of resizing them and toggling full-screen. With effective tools like telescope and nvim, the need to line all windows up disapears, because the switching is so efficient and I have more of a mental picture than a visual one of what's available. For example, no need for the file tree commonly to the left in most IDEs.
I thought like you in the past. Today, for some reason, I value defaults and reducing my cognitive load so that I can think more and do less. Even Eclipse would work for me nowadays :P
I remember Eclipse! That was something like 20 years ago I used it last time. Thanks for bringing back some memories.
Setting up an efficient terminal environment is overwhelming. I do it as a hobby and enjoy the tinkering. Thanks to GPT the process is quicker. But I spent a lot of time just setting up a basic environment.
97 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadMost of the modern terms these days have GPU acceleration too.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview
DESQview did not do any memory management of its own, and it did not use graphics. It was entirely local and had no networking. It was famously fast. It was a DOS multitasker so it managed DOS tasks, meaning multiple slots of 640kB. On a 386 with 4MB of RAM you could have 6 full-size DOS VMs with a bit left over.
If you were a power user you could still have say a big 1-2-3 spreadsheet in EMS plus a few DOS VMs.
DESQview delegated memory management to QEMM386, and QEMM386 did not do swapping. It didn't need to.
DESQview/X was a totally different product, with a full GUI, so much bigger and slower -- and it added an optional extension that added full virtual memory with swapping to disk.
I am wondering if you are mixing up DESQview (small, fast, local) with DV/x (big, complicated, networked, had optional VM)?
Or indeed DV/x with something else altogether? OS/2 maybe?
Because if it was swapping, it wasn't DESQview, not in any normal sane config anyway. It might be possible to add DV/x VM to plain old DESQview but I never heard of anyone doing that.
magazine page 97
https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1986-10/page/n108/...
And with exception of command.com, most have had good CLI shells, without having to pretend being a teletype, like UNIX ones.
Amiga DOS with REXX was great, Oberon REPL, Smalltalk Transcript, Interlisp-D REPL, Xerox Star Mesa XDE,....
[1]: <https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/>
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/7263/better-desktop-z...
Probably it would be possible to zoom one window at once as a shell extension.
ssh vtm@netxs.online
That domain is dead now
When I said "zooming" I was thinking of the white tethers attached to each window which would pull them back into a centre bundle. You can see what I mean here: https://changelog.com/news/a-textbased-desktop-environment-i... at the bottom left, the lines going off to a single point.
actually, by zooming out, I can still see the tethers on the windows. The ssh version was quite mind-blowing back when...
I already have a Linux machine, but yes this looks like a nice addition;)
It can't just be pretty.
https://www.brain-dump.org/projects/dvtm/
I cant wait to try it.
Its not hard.
Still doesn't make a lot of sense, but I like it. :-D
However, from my perspective, the extensive need to drag windows around and resize them is a habit of windows environment. So, perhaps, this is for the mouse what tmux and Neovim are for the keyboard.
In tmux, the window layouts I need are fixed sets of 2x2 panes, with some predefined ways of resizing them and toggling full-screen. With effective tools like telescope and nvim, the need to line all windows up disapears, because the switching is so efficient and I have more of a mental picture than a visual one of what's available. For example, no need for the file tree commonly to the left in most IDEs.
Setting up an efficient terminal environment is overwhelming. I do it as a hobby and enjoy the tinkering. Thanks to GPT the process is quicker. But I spent a lot of time just setting up a basic environment.
what use is a text-based desktop environment, if it requires a graphical interface and cannot run in a tty?