W Window System

W Window System
W Window System
Original author(s)	Paul Asente, Brian Reid
Developer(s)	Stanford University
Operating system	V operating system
Successor	X Window System
Type	Windowing system

The W Window System, or simply W, is a discontinued windowing system and precursor, in name and concept, to the modern X Window System.

W was originally developed at Stanford University by Paul Asente and Brian Reid for the V operating system. In 1983, Paul Asente and Chris Kent ported the system to UNIX on the VS100, giving a copy to those working at MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science.^[1]

In 1984, Bob Scheifler of MIT replaced the synchronous protocol of W with an asynchronous alternative and named the result X.^[2]

Since this time, the X window system has gone through many fundamental changes and no longer bears any significant resemblance to W.

References

^ Scheifler, Robert W.; Gettys, Jim (April 1986). "The X window system". ACM Transactions on Graphics. 5 (2): 79–109. doi:10.1145/22949.24053. ISSN 0730-0301. S2CID 18458549.
^ "Talisman: Debut of X". www.talisman.org. Retrieved 2022-05-30.