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waits


  3  definitions  found 
 
  From  Jargon  File  (4.2.3,  23  NOV  2000)  [jargon]: 
 
  WAITS  /wayts/  n.  The  mutant  cousin  of  {{TOPS-10}}  used  on  a 
  handful  of  systems  at  {{SAIL}}  up  to  1990.  There  was  never  an 
  `official'  expansion  of  WAITS  (the  name  itself  having  been  arrived  at  by 
  a  rather  sideways  process),  but  it  was  frequently  glossed  as  `West-coast 
  Alternative  to  ITS'.  Though  WAITS  was  less  visible  than  ITS  there 
  was  frequent  exchange  of  people  and  ideas  between  the  two  communities, 
  and  innovations  pioneered  at  WAITS  exerted  enormous  indirect  influence. 
  The  early  screen  modes  of  {EMACS},  for  example,  were  directly  inspired  by 
  WAITS's  `E'  editor  --  one  of  a  family  of  editors  that  were  the  first  to 
  do  `real-time  editing',  in  which  the  editing  commands  were  invisible  and 
  where  one  typed  text  at  the  point  of  insertion/overwriting.  The  modern 
  style  of  multi-region  windowing  is  said  to  have  originated  there  and 
  WAITS  alumni  at  XEROX  PARC  and  elsewhere  played  major  roles  in  the 
  developments  that  led  to  the  XEROX  Star,  the  Macintosh,  and  the  Sun 
  workstations.  Also  invented  there  were  {bucky  bits}  --  thus  the  ALT 
  key  on  every  IBM  PC  is  a  WAITS  legacy.  One  WAITS  feature  very  notable 
  in  pre-Web  days  was  a  news-wire  interface  that  allowed  WAITS  hackers 
  to  read,  store,  and  filter  AP  and  UPI  dispatches  from  their  terminals; 
  the  system  also  featured  a  still-unusual  level  of  support  for  what  is  now 
  called  `multimedia'  computing,  allowing  analog  audio  and  video 
  signals  to  be  switched  to  programming  terminals. 
 
 
 
  From  The  Free  On-line  Dictionary  of  Computing  (13  Mar  01)  [foldoc]: 
 
  WAITS 
 
  /wayts/  The  mutant  cousin  of  {TOPS-10}  used  on  a  handful  of 
  systems  at  {SAIL}  up  to  1990.  There  was  never  an  official" 
  expansion  of  WAITS  (the  name  itself  having  been  arrived  at  by 
  a  rather  sideways  process),  but  it  was  frequently  glossed  as 
  "West-coast  Alternative  to  ITS".  Though  WAITS  was  less 
  visible  than  ITS  there  was  frequent  exchange  of  people  and 
  ideas  between  the  two  communities,  and  innovations  pioneered 
  at  WAITS  exerted  enormous  indirect  influence.  The  early 
  screen  modes  of  {Emacs},  for  example,  were  directly  inspired 
  by  WAITS's  E"  editor  -  one  of  a  family  of  editors  that  were 
  the  first  to  do  "real-time  editing",  in  which  the  editing 
  commands  were  invisible  and  where  one  typed  text  at  the  point 
  of  insertion/overwriting.  The  modern  style  of  multi-region 
  windowing  is  said  to  have  originated  there  and  WAITS  alumni 
  at  XEROX  PARC  and  elsewhere  played  major  roles  in  the 
  developments  that  led  to  the  XEROX  Star,  the  Macintosh,  and 
  the  Sun  workstations.  {Bucky  bits}  were  also  invented  there 
  ---  thus  the  ALT  key  on  every  IBM  PC  is  a  WAITS  legacy.  One 
  notable  WAITS  feature  seldom  duplicated  elsewhere  was  a 
  news-wire  interface  that  allowed  WAITS  hackers  to  read,  store, 
  and  filter  AP  and  UPI  dispatches  from  their  terminals;  the 
  system  also  featured  a  still-unusual  level  of  support  for  what 
  is  now  called  multimedia"  computing,  allowing  analog  audio 
  and  video  signals  to  be  switched  to  programming  terminals. 
 
  [{Jargon  File}] 
 
 
 
  From  V.E.R.A.  --  Virtual  Entity  of  Relevant  Acronyms  13  March  2001  [vera]: 
 
  WAITS 
  Westcoast  Alternative  to  ITS 
 
 




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