50th Anniversary of BitBLT: The Fundamental Graphics Routine That Enabled Smalltalk's Interface
By
todsacerdoti
Sketches a bagel but doesn't bake it through.
Summary
The article commemorates the 50th anniversary of BitBLT (Bit Block Transfer), a fundamental computer graphics routine developed at Xerox PARC for the Alto computer. The routine, created by the Smalltalk team, enabled arbitrary copying and moving of rectangular bitmaps, making Smalltalk's graphical interface possible. The post includes historical context and references an internal PARC memo about the technology.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledI declare that today, Nov. 19, 2025 is the 50th anniversary of BitBLT, a routine so fundamental to computer graphics that we don't even think about it having an origin.
A working (later optimized) implementation was devised on the Xerox Alto by members of the Smalltalk team.
It made it easy to arbitrarily copy and move arbitrary rectangles of bits in a graphical bitmap.
It was this routine that made Smalltalk's graphical interface possible.
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