It wasn't long after RogerBates joined TekLabs that the
Magnolia project got started.  RickLefaivre believed that
we needed serious desktop computing power if we were to 
have any idea how to plan for what would surely be the
environment of the future.

Roger and ChipSchnarel and others build about 60 of the
dual processor 68000 machines.  The second processor was
a display processor which was helped with a little bit-slice
engine well on its way around the CircleOfReincarnation.

Roger wrote the windowing software that ran on the display
processor and knocked off a nice drafting program that
talked to it from a unix process running on the other cpu.
Many other projects were started but only AllenWirfsBrock's
Smalltalk had any impact.

I'm not sure who picked the name Magnolia.  
I've heard it was MayerSchwartz who had seen the previous
workstation effort, code name Beaver, go down.
In the south the Magnolia is also known as the Beaver Tree.

RandalSchwartz played with one of these while he was waiting for TekECS to get organized, learned the SmalltalkLanguage, then later convinced JasonPenney at ServioLogic that
Smalltalk was the "right language".  The rest is history.

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CategoryHardware