LilithComdexDemo
Why Hacker News recommends it
Linked in threads on early workstations and Modula-2 as a quick look at the Lilith's windowed interface.
What it is
A silent demo of the ETH Lilith Modula-2 workstation running its Comdex demo program, captured from the Emulith emulator.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2012 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Cites mhd · 2012-08 · on “Blit: a multitasking, windowed Unix GUI from 1982”
Ah, early GUIs. For comparison, take a look at Xerox' Cedar and Smalltalk, or Wirth's Lillith and Oberon, all from pretty much the same era. The Lilith systems are often overlooked. They predate the Blit, are programmed in Modula-2, translated to bytecode. Oberon is a bit more well-known, but still not as much as both the language and the OS deserve. Lilith demo video: [this video] Some screenshots & pics: [LINK] Cedar demo: [LINK] (Smalltalk and Oberon are a bit easier to find and more well-known anyway)
Cites pjmlp · 2013-02 · on “Why do programming languages use curly braces?”
It used to be a serious language back in the day (up to early 90's). The Lillith operating system was written in it. A fully working operating system with what could be considered a kind of GUI environment on those days. It was used at Zurich's university and a few others around the world. You can have a look at it here: [this video] (Lilith Comdex Demo) [LINK] (Emulator) [LINK] (Some background history) There were a few companies selling commercial Modula-2 compilers like Garden's Point and Excelsior. There was a UNIX system that had it as part of their compiler suite, I cannot remember which one now. It failed to fully replace Pascal, because eventually Mac/Turbo Pascal came along and most Pasc
Cites mncharity · 2025-05 · on “Lilith and Modula-2”
An Emulith page[1] has a Lilith hardware manual[2]. There's a brief Comdex Emulith demo.[3] [1] [LINK] [2] [LINK] (pdf; 20 MB) [3] [this video]