Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad 1963

Amazing demo of Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad computer design program, which he developed in the early 1960s.

"John, we're going to show you a man actually talking to a computer..." (via Tinsleman)

[Anonymous September 2, 2009 4:20 PM]

Ha the CAD packages I use are not so different from what they had 50 odd years ago thats quite a surprise.

[dougrogers September 2, 2009 5:38 PM]

Even more historically significant, at 6:40 we witness the creation of PacMan!

[Axx September 2, 2009 5:58 PM]

Very cool. I honestly wouldn't have thought that folks were tackling that kind of programming until the '70s. It makes my head hurt to think about how complex that entire project must have been.

[Brian Kantor September 2, 2009 6:49 PM]

In the 60s, Evans & Sutherland Company made the "Picture System", perhaps the first commercial computer graphics system. Serial #1 was installed at the University of California San Diego Chemistry Dept. I remember as a teenager (about 1965?) getting to play with it during a school visit - it had an interactive demo (quite possibly "sketchpad") that allowed the operator, using a 3-D wand, to construct a wireframe city from a menu of streets and buildings, including windmills whose blades continued to turn.

About 20 years later (mid 80s), I discovered it sitting abandoned in a basement storeroom, and arranged to have it picked up by the Evans & Sutherland company, who were going to recondition it and send it on to the Computer Museum, then in Boston. I lost track of it after that.

Sutherland (and Evans!) were true pioneers of computer graphics, and well deserve to be remembered.

[Shelby Davis September 2, 2009 7:14 PM]

So cool, makes me wish I'd been alive back then--when things were *exciting*.

[Anonymous September 2, 2009 8:33 PM]

The first real demonstration of cut and paste! 50 years later and most people still don't know how to use it.

[Anonymous September 3, 2009 12:41 AM]

That's really amazing. They basically invented Sketchup right there. Plus the ability of programs like the Flash IDE to define symbols that not only are duplicated but actually are kept up to date with the original. I have a little program called Geometer's Sketchpad whose capabilities are basically identical to that of the program demonstrated- constraints, the cursor "sticking" to previously created lines, etc.

I can't begin to imagine how difficult it must have been to program in the vector calculations required for handling 3D intersections in the second half. Oh, and then the flowchart-program at the end- "Instead of using something like punchcards to program the computer, you can do it just by drawing!".

[tsdguy September 3, 2009 5:46 AM]

Embed is part 1. Don't forget to watch part 2. Great piece of history.

[John Dallman September 3, 2009 7:02 AM]

Ivan Sutherland basically invented computer graphics. The company he founded still exists, and can be found at es.com; they do digital theature and planetariums these days. Last I heard of him he was heading a radical CPU design project at Sun, but that seems to have died.

[Anonymous September 3, 2009 9:37 AM]

Man, I wish my Wacom had TOGGLE SWITCHES.

[kyderdog September 3, 2009 11:31 AM]

>Ha the CAD packages I use are not so different...

Intergraph Cad systems were being used in 1969 (6 years later) they later turned into the PC version of Microstation beating autocad to the maket by 13 years.

[MarkM September 3, 2009 3:15 PM]

Slide #11.
A Man Talking To a Computer.
Slide #12.
A Man Talking To a Computer.
Slide #13.
The Larch.

[Anonymous September 3, 2009 6:16 PM]

"Ha the CAD packages I use are not so different from what they had 50 odd years ago thats quite a surprise."

Indeed. Even though AutoDesk keeps grotesquely grafting newer software onto AutoCAD, the core of the program could be straight out of the 60s or 70s.

AutoCAD *2009* doesn't even have constraints. And it's essentially still the universal industry standard in architecture and construction.

[Josh Cothran September 4, 2009 12:34 AM]

I had the pleasure of hearing Ivan Sutherland reflect on this (and getting to meet him!) at a SIGCHI panel in 2005. Video of the talk is posted at http://epresence.tv/showcase. Bill Buxton (Microsoft Research badass and mad scientist) has a great writeup on Sutherland as well: http://www.billbuxton.com/Lincoln.html.

[Anonymous September 9, 2009 9:02 AM]

"AutoCAD *2009* doesn't even have constraints. And it's essentially still the universal industry standard in architecture and construction."

Seems that they finally were able to do this with AutoDesk Revit.