50th Anniversary of BitBLT

(mastodon.sdf.org)

69 points | by todsacerdoti 1 day ago

5 comments

lalalandland 15 hours ago
Interview with Dan Ingalls here where he talks about inventing BitBlt
www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102738237/
uticus 16 hours ago
First time I heard of BitBLT was the Win-11-breaking-ColorForth discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45953001
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 8 hours ago
43FF's Law: You can measure software complexity by the number of nested for-loops.
The first for-loop appeared around in 1957 in FORTRAN.
In 1975, Smalltalk having two nested for-loops was a grand breakthrough.
Now in 2025, our most advanced AIs run on for-loops nested 6 or 7 deep. Who knows what the future may hold?
ChrisArchitect 19 hours ago
Happy BitBLT Day to all who celebrate https://www.jwz.org/blog/2025/11/happy-bitblt-day-to-all-who...
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- trollbridge 18 hours ago
  Reminder to right-click, click "Get Clean Link", then open a new tab and paste to avoid jwz's anti-HN referral tracker.
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  - ChrisArchitect 17 hours ago
    oh, uh, can jump from mastodon then where I copied the link from, sorry https://mastodon.social/@jwz/115578171906975865
- kristianp 16 hours ago
  He refers to byte magazine's article on bitblt: https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1981-08/page/n185/...
  Also XScreensaver's Blitspin hack: https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1981-08/page/n201/...
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTtcwb-UWW8
- HappyPanacea 16 hours ago
  What does this guy have against HN?
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  - agumonkey 15 hours ago
    first time i get "*ickrolled" on HN
  - kragen 13 hours ago
    Didn't you read the page? "A venture capital company's fan club. Finance-obsessed man-children making the world worse." A previous version said, "A DDoS made of finance-obsessed man-children and brogrammers."
  - rjsw 16 hours ago
    Worked for too many VCs.
snvzz 12 hours ago
A routine often used for intellectual property theft*.
It will copy any image, irrespective of the copyright owners' desire.
*copyright infringement.