Softbench

HP Softbench was one of the first plug-in Integrated Development Environment (IDE) tool based on the UNIX operating system, UNIX tools and the X Window System.

The main ideas were:

Tools and data can reside on many different systems across the network
Tool communication using a Broadcast Message Server
Common user interface
Integrated help facility
Tool Slots
Encapsulator: tool for encapsulate any CASE tool into a Tool Slot if it supports standard I/O.

History

SoftBench was released in 1989 and presented in the June 1990 HP Journal.^[1] It was an early adoption of some of the IDE ideas that are common today in well known IDEs like Eclipse.

References

^ Cagan, Martin R. (June 1990). "The HP SoftBench Environment: An Architecture for a New Generation of Software Tools". Hewlett-Packard Journal. 41 (3): 36–47.

HP Softbench has reserved ports 6110-6111 in the IANA list of port assignments List of TCP and UDP port numbers
Bark, R. (4 November 1991). "HP SoftBench-support for distributed working". Architectures for Distributed Development Support Environments, IEE Colloquium on. Architectures for Distributed Development Support Environments 1991. Savoy Place. pp. 7/1–7/5.

[Cagan90-1] Cagan, Martin R. (June 1990). "The HP SoftBench Environment: An Architecture for a New Generation of Software Tools". Hewlett-Packard Journal. 41 (3): 36–47.

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