GDDM (Graphical Data Display Manager) is a
computer graphics system for the IBM
System/370 which was developed in
IBM's
Hursley lab, and first released in 1979. GDDM was originally designed to provide programming support for the
IBM 3279
The IBM 3270 is a family of block oriented display and printer computer terminals introduced by IBM in 1971
and normally used to communicate with IBM mainframes. The 3270 was the successor to the IBM 2260 display terminal. Due to the text ...
colour display terminal and the associated 3287 colour printer. The 3279 was a colour graphics terminal designed to be used in a general business environment.
GDDM was extended in the early 1980s to provide graphics support for all of IBM's display terminals and printers, and ran on all of IBM's mainframe operating systems.
GDDM also provided support for the (then current) international standards for interactive computer graphics:
GKS and
PHIGS. Both GKS and PHIGS were designed around the requirements of
CAD
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...
systems.
GDDM is also available on the IBM i midrange operating system, as well as its predecessor, the AS/400.
GDDM comprises a number of components:
* Graphics primitives - lines, circles, boxes etc.
* Graphing - through the Presentation Graphics Feature (PGF)
* Language support - PL/I, REXX, COBOL etc.
* Conversion capabilities - for example to GIF format.
* Interactive Chart Utility (ICU).
GDDM remains in widespread use today, embedded in many
z/OS applications, as well as in system programs.
GDDM and OS/2 Presentation Manager
IBM and
Microsoft began collaborating on the design of
OS/2 in 1986. The Graphics Presentation Interface (GPI), the graphics
API in the OS/2
Presentation Manager, was based on IBM's GDDM and the Graphics Control Program (GCP). GCP was originally developed in Hursley for the 3270/PC-G and 3270/PC-GX terminals.
The GPI was the primary graphics
API for the
OS/2 operating system.
At the time (1980s), the
graphical user interface (GUI) was still in its early stages of popularity, but already it was clear that the foundation of a good GUI was a graphics API with strong ''real-time interactive'' capabilities. Unfortunately, the design of GDDM was closer to (at the time) traditional graphics APIs like
GKS, which made it unsuited for more than the simplest interactive uses.
Microsoft and IBM went their separate ways in 1991. Microsoft continued development of its
Windows operating environment with
Graphics Device Interface (GDI) graphics API. IBM continued with OS/2 for several more years.
References
* Charles Petzold, '' Programming the OS/2 Presentation Manager'', Microsoft Press, 1989. {{ISBN, 1-55615-170-5.
External links
announcement of 3279 and 3287.GDDM Programming Guide
Graphics software
OS/2
Graphical Data Display Manager
IBM mainframe software