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Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 08:02:45 -0600
From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva)
Message-Id: <199612041402.IAA07328@bonkers.taronga.com>
To: hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: What's SAM? (Re: text, menu/dialog/windowing, library, ideas?)
Newsgroups: taronga.freebsd.hackers
In-Reply-To: <199612041147.AA141990066@ws2301.gud.siemens.co.at>
References: <199612040936.UAA16234@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
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Precedence: bulk

SAM is the function-key-driven system administration tool that HP's been
developing since its first incarnation on the HP 150 touch screen and the
HP integral lunchbox UNIX system back in 1984.

(the integral was cute: ROM based root file system that was copied into RAM
on boot up, automatically mounted floppies when they were inserted and
mechanically locked the eject button until they were unmountable, and no hard
disk because there weren't any hard disks that satisfied HP's "your calculator
will still work after going through a snowblower" construction standards)

It's not bad, and with a sufficiently high level abstraction an X-based
version would be able to be made much nicer looking than any widget oriented
equivalent.