Multi-Tasking with the Blit Terminal in 1982

Today, multi-tasking on a PC is something most of us take for granted, and if the ability to multi-task suddenly disappeared… alright, I don’t want to talk about it! In the earlier days of computing though, multi-tasking was an unknown, a total rarity. But believe it or not, even though CPUs like the Motorola 68000 were produced with frequencies as low as 4MHz, they could indeed handle multi-tasking.

Tech blog iSpyce posted about these early 80’s limitations, and also about one of the biggest solutions: Blit. This terminal software, named after “bit blit“, allowed users to run multiple programs on their computer. Essentially, the user could open up different terminal emulators and run applications in each, such as a text editor or game. Best of all, it even supported a mouse. Yes, a mouse!

Blit was so cool of a product that a demonstration video was made, which has since been uploaded to YouTube. Though the monochrome green video is a little hard on the eyes, the technology primitive and hardware laughable, just imagine how cool this would have been back in 1982!

Not to mention, it’s also cool that the terminal was based on Unix, and while a graphic animation played, someone could write their code, compile it, and even play a game of Asteroids – all at the same time. Now that’s power!

Before 1982, one can only do one thing at a time on any computer. But then Rob Pike and Bart Locanthi in 1982 invented and developed the Blit Terminal. Blit Terminal was a first generation Windows environment where users could take advantage of the multitasking feature for the very first time. Initially Blit looked like an ordinary textual terminal but using UNIX host software one can see the display. The Blit technology was commercialized by AT&T and Teletype.