The DISER Lilith is a custom built

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

computer based on the

Advanced Micro Devices Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufact ...

(AMD) 2901

bit slicing Bit slicing is a technique for constructing a processor from modules of processors of smaller bit width, for the purpose of increasing the word length; in theory to make an arbitrary ''n''-bit central processing unit (CPU). Each of these com ...

processor, created by a group led by

Niklaus Wirth Niklaus Emil Wirth (born 15 February 1934) is a Swiss computer scientist. He has designed several programming languages, including Pascal (programming language), Pascal, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984, he w ...

ETH Zürich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , ac ...

. Reprint. Reprint. The project began in 1977, and by 1984 several hundred workstations were in use. It has a high resolution full page portrait oriented

cathode ray tube A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms ( oscilloscope), pictu ...

display, a

mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...

, a

laser printer Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively-charged cylinder called a "drum" to d ...

interface, and a

computer networking A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ma ...

interface. Its software is written fully in

Modula-2 Modula-2 is a structured, procedural programming language developed between 1977 and 1985/8 by Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zurich. It was created as the language for the operating system and application software of the Lilith personal workstation. It w ...

and includes a

relational database A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relatio ...

program named Lidas. The Lilith processor architecture is a

stack machine In computer science, computer engineering and programming language implementations, a stack machine is a computer processor or a virtual machine in which the primary interaction is moving short-lived temporary values to and from a push down st ...

. Citing from Sven Erik Knudsen's contribution to "The Art of Simplicity": "Lilith's clock speed was around 7 MHz and enabled Lilith to execute between 1 and 2 million instructions (called M-code) per second. (...) Initially, the main memory was planned to have 65,536

16-bit 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mos ...

words A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...

memory, but soon after its first version, it was enlarged to twice that capacity. For regular Modula-2 programs however, only the initial 65,536 words were usable for storage of variables."

History

The development of Lilith was influenced by the

Xerox Alto The Xerox Alto is a computer designed from its inception to support an operating system based on a graphical user interface (GUI), later using the desktop metaphor. The first machines were introduced on 1 March 1973, a decade before mass-market G ...

from the

Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...

(1973) where

spent a sabbatical from 1976 to 1977. Unable to bring back one of the Alto systems to Europe, Wirth decided to build a new system from scratch between 1978 and 1980, selling it under the company name DISER (''Data Image Sound Processor and Emitter Receiver System''). In 1985, he had a second sabbatical leave to PARC, which led to the design of the Oberon System.

Ceres Ceres most commonly refers to: * Ceres (dwarf planet), the largest asteroid * Ceres (mythology), the Roman goddess of agriculture Ceres may also refer to: Places Brazil * Ceres, Goiás, Brazil * Ceres Microregion, in north-central Goiás ...

, the follow-up to Lilith, was released in 1987.

Operating system

The Lilith

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

(OS), named Medos-2, was developed at ETH Zurich, by Svend Erik Knudsen with advice from Wirth. It is a single user,

object-oriented operating system An object-oriented operating system is an operating system that is designed, structured, and operated using object-oriented programming principles. An object-oriented operating system is in contrast to an object-oriented user interface or programm ...

built from modules of Modula-2. Its design influenced design of the OS ''

Excelsior Excelsior, a Latin comparative word often translated as "ever upward" or "even higher", may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature and poetry * "Excelsior" (Longfellow), an 1841 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow * ''Excelsior'' (Macedo ...

'', developed for the Soviet Kronos workstation (see below), by the Kronos Research Group (KRG).

Soviet variants

From 1986 into the early 1990s,

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

technologists created and produced a line of

printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in Electrical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a L ...

systems, and workstations based on them, all named Kronos. The workstations were based on Lilith, and made in small numbers.

Mouse

The

computer mouse A computer mouse (plural mice, sometimes mouses) is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on a display, which allows a smooth c ...

of the Lilith was custom-designed, and later used with the

Smaky The Smaky is a line of mostly 8-bit personal computers and accompanying operating system developed by Professor Jean-Daniel Nicoud and others at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland beginning in 1974. The computers ...

computers. It then inspired the first mice produced by

Logitech Logitech International S.A. ( ; often shortened to Logi) is a Swiss multinational manufacturer of computer peripherals and software, with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Newark, California. The company has offices throughout Europe, ...

References

External links

Documentation on BitSavers

Geissman, L et al. (August 1982) Lilith Handbook

Wirth, N (1981) The Personal Computer Lilith
* tp://ftp.dreesen.ch/Emulith Emulith emulator for the Lilithbr>homepage
and tp://ftp.dreesen.ch/Emulith/Emulith_Manual.pdf documentation
Lilith and Modula-2

ETHistory - Lilith Workstation

{{Wirth Computer workstations Computers using bit-slice designs High-level language computer architecture