A computer program once showed pictures on a screen.
It helped people use a mouse. It could make a clock on the screen. It could even make eyes that move. This helped us use computers. Do you like using a mouse?
A long time ago, people made a new way to use computers.
It was called NeWS. It helped a computer show many things on one screen. You could use a mouse to click on buttons. If you clicked a button, the computer would know. It could even show a clock on the screen. It could show eyes that follow your mouse.
This was very special back then. Many schools and companies used it to work. It was a very smart way to see computer pictures.
In the mid-1980s, Sun Microsystems made a system called NeWS.
NeWS was a windowing system. This is a way for computers to show many things on one screen at once. It used a language called PostScript to work. PostScript is a way to tell a computer how to draw pictures.
NeWS was very smart. It could make interactive programs. This means you could use a mouse to click on buttons. When you click a button, the system sends an event. An event is a message that tells the computer something happened. If the button does not react, the message goes to the next thing under it.
NeWS could show many programs at the same time. It could even show an onscreen clock. One famous program showed eyes that followed the mouse. This was shown in 1988. It helped inspire other computer programs later.
Many groups used NeWS. Some universities and companies made their own versions. One group made a toolkit called TNT.
TNT helped people make tools for the screen. NeWS was very powerful, but it was also slow. Eventually, Sun stopped supporting it. This meant people stopped making new things for it.
NeWS was a special way for computers to show information on a screen. It was developed by Sun Microsystems in the mid-1980s. At first, the system was called "SunDew."
It is known as a windowing system. This means it helps a computer manage many different windows at once. It was a very powerful tool for making computer screens look and act in interesting ways.
This system worked by using a language called PostScript. PostScript is a way to tell a computer how to draw pictures. NeWS took this language and made it even better for windows. It used something called an interpreter to run the code.
The system could show many PostScript programs on one screen at the same time. It used a hierarchy of views called canvases to organize everything. This allowed the computer to handle many different tasks at once.
When you use a mouse, NeWS handles your actions through events. An event is a message that tells the computer something happened. For example, a mouse click creates an event. This event travels through a tree of views to find the right object. If you click a button and it does not respond, the message goes to the object under it.
This made the system very good at responding to users quickly.
Two main people created NeWS: James Gosling and David S. H. Rosenthal. They showed off its power at a meeting called SIGGRAPH in 1988. They showed a program that drew eyes on the screen. These eyes would follow the mouse cursor as it moved.
This famous eyeball program even inspired a well-known application called xeyes. In 1989, Sun released a toolkit called TNT, which stands for The NeWS Toolkit.
Many different places used NeWS in their own ways. Companies like SGI and Grasshopper Group made their own versions. Even Pixar used it for their Image Computer Applications.
However, NeWS faced some hard jobs. It was often slower than a competing system called X. Sun also had to charge a fee to use the code. Eventually, Sun stopped supporting NeWS, and people stopped making new programs for it.
NeWS, which stands for Network extensible Window System, was a sophisticated windowing system. It was developed by Sun Microsystems during the mid-1980s. A windowing system is software that manages how different programs appear on a computer screen. NeWS was designed to be more than just a way to show windows. It was built to be a powerful, interactive environment for computer users.
The core of NeWS was a PostScript interpreter. PostScript is a specialized programming language used primarily for describing how images should look on a page. While a standard printer uses PostScript to draw static images, NeWS extended this capability. It allowed the language to handle multiple "contexts" to support many windows at once. The system used a cooperative multitasking approach to run several PostScript programs on one screen simultaneously. This was achieved through a view hierarchy. This hierarchy was organized into viewports known as canvases.
NeWS managed user interactions through a complex event distribution system. This system supported events, interests, threads, and monitors. When a user interacted with the hardware, such as clicking a mouse, the system generated an event. These events traveled through a tree of embedded views. For example, a mouse click would be sent to the object directly under the cursor, like a button. If that button did not respond, the event passed to the object underneath it. This process ensured that the computer could track exactly which part of the screen was being used. The system also included input queues for devices like keyboards to ensure smooth interaction.
To make building software easier, NeWS expanded the original PostScript language. It transformed the stack-based language into an object-oriented programming style. This style uses inheritance, which allows new objects to take on the properties of existing ones. Because these features were built directly into the PostScript extension, developers did not need an external language to create full applications. They could write simple PostScript code to create interactive, onscreen programs. This made the system highly integrated and capable of complex behaviors.
The development of NeWS was led by primary authors James Gosling and David S. H. Rosenthal. They demonstrated the system's capabilities at the SIGGRAPH conference in 1988. One notable demonstration was a program that drew a pair of eyes. These eyes would move to follow the user's cursor around the screen. This eyeball program was so impactful that it inspired the famous X application known as xeyes. Later, in 1989, Sun released a library of user interface elements called TNT, or The NeWS Toolkit.
Many different organizations licensed and adapted NeWS for their own hardware. SGI used a version called 4Sight to replace their MEX system. The Grasshopper Group created a Macintosh port called MacNeWS. Even Pixar used NeWS for their Image Computer Applications. Other ports were created for systems like the Amiga 2000, Apollo workstations, and the Cray XMP-24. One of the few successful commercial products to run on NeWS was the FrameMaker desktop publishing program. This program used the OPEN LOOK version of the FrameMaker desktop.
Despite its power, NeWS faced significant competition from the X Window System. While NeWS was more powerful, it was often slower than X, especially over local connections. Another major difference was cost. Sun Microsystems charged a fee to license the NeWS source code. In contrast, the MIT X11 code was available for free. To try and bridge this gap, Sun released a hybrid called Xnews. This version ran an X11 server alongside the PostScript interpreter. However, this hybrid version actually degraded the performance of the NeWS interpreter. Eventually, as the OPEN LOOK interface lost popularity to Motif, Sun stopped supporting NeWS. This led to the end of development for NeWS-based products.
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