Origins
The name derives from the BitBLT routine for the Xerox Alto computer, standing for bit block transfer. This operation was created by Dan Ingalls, Larry Tesler, Bob Sproull, and Diana Merry at Xerox PARC in November 1975 for the Smalltalk-72 system. Dan Ingalls later implemented a redesigned version in microcode. It is commonly believed that Blit is an acronym for BLock Image Transfer, but that is not the case.
The development of fast methods for various bit blit operations was key in the evolution of computer displays from using character graphics, to using bitmap graphics for everything. Machines that rely heavily on the performance of 2D graphics (such as video game consoles) often have special-purpose circuitry called a blitter.
Read more about this topic: Bit Blit
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)