In the beginning was the Alto.
That's how most histories of the modern graphical user interface (GUI) begin, and deservedly so; the pioneering work at Xerox PARC in the early 1970s is truly legendary and there are countless resources online that recount the impressive list of accomplishments and technologies that sprang forth from the seminal work done there. While there are other early graphics systems that predate the Alto, its use of bitmapped graphics, a pointing device, "windows" on the screen for interaction and a microcoded custom processor are the features that most influenced the design of the PERQ.
In a nutshell, the PERQ is a "personal computer" that dedicates its resources to a single user, but which has the power to be linked into a network for the sharing of resources. Think of it like the original 128K Apple Macintosh, but with a screen four times larger and housed in a 150lb enclosure that roars with cooling fans and a huge 14" hard drive inside it. Five years before the Mac said "Hello," the PERQ prototype made its debut at SIGGRAPH '79. It made quite a splash, bringing the Xerox Alto concepts out of the lab and making its case as the first commercially-available machine to meet the "3 M" criteria: a MIP, a megabyte, and a million pixel display.
My personal history with the PERQ began in 1980-81 when through sheer serendipity I was able to peek behind the curtain at the machine in its early days. A precocious youth with access to Carnegie-Mellon University's SPICE Rack, a development lab filled with wonders deep in the dark, brutalist heart of Wean Hall, and with inside access to Three Rivers Computer's "Advanced Development Group" where the next generation was being designed, my first foray into computing was uniquely privileged. While early 8-bit microcomputers were intriguing, discovering the PERQ was like unwrapping a Golden Ticket. Forty years later I am still exploring the archaeological ruin of my childhood obsession, working to preserve the last bits of software, data and lore from the metaphorical Chocolate Factory that was Three Rivers Computer Corporation. But more about that personal history in later posts.
Rather than rehash all of the machine's technical specs here, I invite you to dig into the PERQemu project at https://github.com/skeezicsb/PERQemu, where I've been contributing to the emulator first begun by Josh Dersch in 2006. There I've added a million words about all of the arcane wonders of the PERQ as we've worked to synthesize a software version of it -- all the technical nitty gritty you could ever want is there. And after a decade or so simmering away on the back burner, it looks like we might have a ONE DOT OH release sometime in 2025: all the models emulated, five different operating systems to explore, thousands of floppies and tapes to dig through. It's nerd heaven, if you're into retrocomputing, horizontal microcoding and early bitmapped graphics computers from the heady days of the early 1980s. As focus shifts from completing the emulator to exploring the archive of available software, there will be lots of interesting stuff to delve into in future posts. Jump in! The PERQ is fun to program and offers a unique look into a fascinating era in computing history.