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| NeWS | |
|---|---|
| Name | NeWS |
| Developer | Sun Microsystems |
| Released | 1985 |
| Operating system | SunOS, Solaris |
| Platform | SPARC, Motorola 68000, x86 (ports) |
| Genre | Windowing system, PostScript-based display server |
NeWS is a network- and PostScript-based windowing system originally developed at Sun Microsystems in the mid-1980s. It combined a display server and a programmable scripting environment that used the PostScript language to describe graphics and user interfaces, aiming to integrate printing and on-screen rendering for workstations such as the Sun-3 and Sun-4. NeWS influenced several contemporaneous projects and interacted with systems from vendors and research groups including MIT, X Consortium, Adobe Systems, Apollo Computer, and AT&T Bell Labs.
NeWS was conceived by engineers at Sun Microsystems seeking to leverage the PostScript imaging model developed by Adobe Systems to provide a device-independent, network-transparent display system for the Sun-3 workstation family and later SPARCstation models. Early design and implementation drew on work by contributors who had experience with Berkeley Software Distribution environments and collaborations with academic institutions such as University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University. The system was unveiled in the context of the mid-1980s workstation market alongside offerings from Apollo Computer and research projects at MIT Project Athena. NeWS’s development intersected with strategic debates inside Sun Microsystems about open standards and partnerships with companies such as AT&T Corporation and IBM. Commercial adoption was limited by competition from the X Window System and licensing decisions involving Adobe Systems; nevertheless, NeWS installations appeared in installations at organizations including Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and NASA Ames Research Center.
NeWS employed a client–server model where the server executed a PostScript interpreter to render graphics and manage windows on display hardware like the Sun-3/50 and SPARCstation 1. The architecture allowed applications to send PostScript procedures over TCP/IP to the server, enabling rich graphical primitives and device-independent output compatible with Adobe PostScript Level 1 printers. NeWS incorporated an event model and object system that interacted with underlying SunOS kernels and graphics subsystems including frame buffer drivers and accelerated hardware from vendors such as Sunsolve partners. Security and modularity were addressed through encapsulation of procedures and use of protocol mechanisms similar to those in distributed systems developed at Carnegie Mellon University and Xerox PARC.
NeWS’s notable features included scriptable user interfaces authored in PostScript with support for scalable fonts from Type 1 fonts inventories, vector and raster primitives, and device-independent coordinates matching PostScript imaging models. The system supported network-transparent display forwarding across TCP/IP connections, printing parity with Adobe PostScript printers, and integration of window decorators and toolkits that could be implemented in the same scripting language used for drawing. NeWS also enabled interactive animation, clipping, and compositing operations comparable to graphics capabilities explored in research at Brown University and University of Utah. Tooling available for NeWS included debuggers, font management utilities, and integration scripts used by systems administrators at organizations like Bell Labs and National Institutes of Health.
NeWS was implemented primarily for SunOS on Sun Microsystems hardware such as the Sun-3 and SPARCstation lines. Third-party ports and experimental builds targeted architectures including Motorola 68000-based workstations, Intel x86 systems, and academic platforms used at MIT and Stanford University. Vendors and research labs produced modified servers and client libraries for environments such as ULTRIX and early Solaris releases. Some vendors bundled NeWS with window managers and desktop components produced by companies like TIG and firms that later merged with or were acquired by Oracle Corporation and Hewlett-Packard.
Applications written for NeWS ranged from scientific visualization and computer-aided design tools used at places like Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to commercial desktop publishing and productivity software that leveraged its PostScript compatibility for WYSIWYG output on Apple LaserWriter-class printers. Graphical editors, plotting packages, and integrated development environments were developed by independent software vendors and research groups including teams formerly associated with Xerox PARC and MIT Project Athena. Toolkits and widget sets allowed creation of complex user interfaces; these were utilized in projects at European Space Agency and computational science centers at universities such as Princeton University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Contemporaneous reception of NeWS mixed praise for its elegant use of PostScript and programmable server model with criticism over licensing and interoperability compared with the X Window System endorsed by the Open Software Foundation and academic consortia. While NeWS never achieved the ubiquity of X on Unix workstations, its concepts influenced later graphics and UI systems, and its integration of printing and display presaged approaches in desktop environments developed by companies such as Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corporation. Artifacts of NeWS survived in academic papers, archival software collections, and influence on efforts in compositing, scalable vector rendering, and scriptable UI toolkits developed at institutions including Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon University.
Category:Windowing systems