NeWS
| Company type | Software / Windowing system |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer software |
| Predecessor | SunDew |
| Founded | mid-1980s |
| Founder | James Gosling, David S. H. Rosenthal |
| Fate | Discontinued |
| Products | Network extensible Window System (NeWS) |
| Owner | Sun Microsystems |
NeWS (short for Network extensible Window System) was a windowing system created by Sun Microsystems during the mid-1980s but has since been discontinued. Initially named "SunDew," the system was chiefly developed by James Gosling and David S. H. Rosenthal. Its core interpreter was built upon PostScript, enhancing it to facilitate interaction and support multiple window "contexts." Unlike standard PostScript, NeWS allowed for fully interactive applications featuring mouse input and a GUI.
Design
The foundation of NeWS was a PostScript interpreter that operated using cooperative multitasking, allowing several PostScript programs to be displayed concurrently on a single screen. It introduced a hierarchical view system structured around viewports called canvases and implemented a synchronous event distribution mechanism that managed events, interests, threads, and monitors.
In line with typical GUI architectures, NeWS employed an embedded view tree to propagate events. For instance, a mouse click would be delivered to the interface element beneath the cursor, such as a button; if not handled there, the event would bubble upward through the hierarchy. NeWS featured an extensive event framework including timers, input queues for devices like mice and keyboards, and provided robust synchronization guarantees that asynchronous systems like X could not achieve.
To enable user interface components, NeWS expanded the original stack-oriented PostScript language into a fully object-oriented paradigm with support for inheritance. This eliminated the necessity of an external object-oriented language to develop full applications. Because these enhancements were integrated directly into PostScript, simple scripts could generate interactive on-screen programs. Among its notable demonstrations were an on-screen clock implemented in roughly two pages of code and an eye-tracking application presented at SIGGRAPH 1988, which later inspired the X program xeyes.
NeWS also offered multiple libraries of user interface widgets written entirely in its own language. These widgets operated internally within the NeWS interpreter and only communicated externally when necessary. For example, a toggle button could internally update its visual state without client involvement; only upon mouse release would it emit an event for processing. This approach was more sophisticated than that of the X Window System, which simply forwarded raw mouse events to clients responsible for managing state changes and redraws—often resulting in latency issues when clients and servers were remote.
A flagship example is TNT (The NeWS Toolkit), released by Sun in 1989 as an extensive widget collection. Prior to TNT, Sun provided a "Lite" toolkit designed for sample programs and smaller applications.
Porting
Although NeWS never achieved widespread adoption, it was licensed by various companies and academic institutions, leading to both commercial and non-commercial ports:
- SGI utilized a variant named 4Sight to replace their proprietary MEX.
- Grasshopper Group created MacNeWS for the Macintosh platform.
- Parallax Graphics enhanced NeWS to support live video processing.
- Architech Corporation adapted it for OS/2, calling their version NeWS/2.
- Columbia University ported it onto the HP 9000 series 3000.
- Los Alamos National Laboratory implemented a port for the Cray XMP-24.
- TGV developed X11/NeWS for the VAXstation 2000 running VMS.
- Wedge Computer Inc. brought NeWS to MacOS.
- Whitechapel created a port targeting MIPS workstations.
- Acorn adapted NeWS for their hardware.
- Ameristar ported it to Amiga 2000 systems.
- Alliant integrated X11/NeWS on their Visualization minisupercomputers.
- The University of Michigan ported it on Apollo workstations in monochrome mode.
- Pixar adapted NeWS for use on their Image Computer.
Applications
The desktop publishing software FrameMaker, developed by Frame Technology Corp. with primary funding from Sun Microsystems and the NSA, featured an OPEN LOOK version that was one of the limited number of commercial applications compatible with NeWS. At The Turing Institute, Arthur van Hoff created HyperLook, an interactive system for designing applications; using HyperLook, Don Hopkins developed a NeWS adaptation of SimCity.
Altsys Virtuoso, a commercial vector graphics program and an advanced port of FreeHand utilizing PostScript, was prepared for release just as Sun announced it would discontinue NeWS support, which constrained its commercial success.
Competition with X Window System
Although NeWS offered greater capabilities than the X, it exhibited slower performance, particularly over local network connections. Its low-level C programming interface was complex, resulting in most NeWS applications being entirely written in PostScript. Furthermore, Sun imposed licensing fees for access to the NeWS source code, whereas the MIT X11 implementation was available without charge.
Initial NeWS releases provided an emulation of the X10 protocol by converting calls into PostScript commands. Due to performance limitations and dependence on precise X10 pixel rendering—combined with the outdated nature of X10—Sun introduced Xnews, a hybrid server combining an X11 server with a PostScript interpreter. This approach reduced efficiency and failed to deliver a robust X11 server experience. Sun also supported the OPEN LOOK user interface through multiple toolkits: The NeWS Toolkit (TNT), implemented in PostScript; OLIT, which was based on the Xt framework; and XView, designed to maintain API compatibility with Sun’s earlier SunView system.
Following OPEN LOOK’s decline in favor of Motif, and after Adobe acquired FrameMaker, Sun terminated its support for NeWS and halted further development on related products.