From the archives: Lilith workstation
The programme Karussell, broadcast by SRF on September 6, 1983, presented the novel computer Lilith that had been developed by Professor Niklaus Wirth and his team at ETH Zurich.
In 1976, Niklaus Wirth, one of the founders of the Department of Computer Science, took a sabbatical at Xerox PARC in California and experienced the Xerox Alto: the world's first workstation to have a graphical user interface and to be controlled by a computer mouse.
Wirth saw great potential in the technology that would one day become the standard for personal computers. After returning to ETH Zurich, he set to work developing his own workstation based on the Alto. Thus Lilith was born: a powerful computer with a high-resolution graphics-capable screen and a mouse. Lilith's system software was written in Modula-2, a programming language developed by Wirth.
Although attempts to commercialise the workstation failed, several dozen Lilith computers were in use during the 1980s at what was then the Institute of Computer Science, both in research and teaching and in administration. Particularly impressive was the Lilith's graphical user interface, which used elements such as windows, icons, and pop-up menus. What is now very familiar to everyone who has used a computer was a novelty at the time. Kurt Aeschbacher, host of the SRF programme Karussell, was impressed:
40 years D-INFK
In 1981, the computer science curriculum was introduced at ETH Zurich. At the same time, the IIIC division was established, which was the foundation for today's Department of Computer Science. On the occasion of its 40th anniversary, we present people and stories that have influenced the department over the past four decades.