GDDM (Graphical Data Display Manager) is acomputer graphics system for the IBMSystem/370 which was developed inIBM'sHursley lab, and first released in 1979. GDDM was originally designed to provide programming support for theIBM 3279 colour display terminal and the associated 3287 colour printer. The 3279 was a colour graphics terminal designed to be used in a general business environment.
GDDM was extended in the early 1980s to provide graphics support for all of IBM's display terminals and printers, and ran on all of IBM's mainframe operating systems.
GDDM also provided support for the (then current) international standards for interactive computer graphics:GKS andPHIGS. Both GKS and PHIGS were designed around the requirements ofCAD systems.
GDDM is also available on the IBM i midrange operating system, as well as its predecessor, the AS/400.[1]
GDDM comprises a number of components:
GDDM remains in widespread use today, embedded in manyz/OS applications, as well as in system programs.
IBM andMicrosoft began collaborating on the design ofOS/2 in 1986. The Graphics Presentation Interface (GPI), the graphicsAPI in the OS/2Presentation Manager, was based on IBM's GDDM and the Graphics Control Program (GCP). GCP was originally developed in Hursley for the 3270/PC-G and 3270/PC-GX terminals.
The GPI was the primary graphicsAPI for theOS/2 operating system.
At the time (1980s), thegraphical user interface (GUI) was still in its early stages of popularity, but already it was clear that the foundation of a good GUI was a graphics API with strongreal-time interactive capabilities. Unfortunately, the design of GDDM was closer to (at the time) traditional graphics APIs likeGKS, which made it unsuited for more than the simplest interactive uses.
Microsoft and IBM went their separate ways in 1991. Microsoft continued development of itsWindows operating environment withGraphics Device Interface (GDI) graphics API. IBM continued with OS/2 for several more years.