Sketchpad

This is a digital copy of a 1963 16:41 min 16mm film film demonstration of Ivan Sutherland's classic Sketchpad system. Sketchpad, and its associated thesis (see reference below), is one of the most influential theses in computer science, and it laid the foundation for a very large part of what we take for granted today (and then some) from the perspective of how we interact with computers.

This work was done at a very special place, MIT's Lincoln Lab, on a very special computer, Wes Clark's TX-2, amongst a group of highly competent and creative people. It was a perfect storm and Sutherland rode it beautifully.


For more information on Sketchpad, see:

Sutherland, I. (1963). Sketchpad: A Man-Machined Graphical Communication System . PhD Thesis, MIT.
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/TechReports/UCAM-CL-TR-574.html


Sutherland, I. (1963). SKETCHPAD: A Man Machine Graphical Communication System, Proceedings of the AFIPS Spring Joint Computer Conference , 329-346.
http://www.aci.com.pl/mwichary/guidebook/articles/historical/sketchpad

For more general information on Lincoln Lab, including Sketchpad, see:

Buxton, William: Resource Page on Early HCI Research by the Lincoln Lab TX-2 Group
http://billbuxton.com/Lincoln.html

Buxton, William (2005). Interaction at Lincoln Laboratory in the 1960's: Looking Forward -- Looking Back . Panel Introduction. Proceedings of the 2005 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI'05 , April 3-7, 2005, 1163-1167.
http://billbuxton.com/LincolnLab.pdf

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Ivan Sutherland
• Computer Graphics
• TX-2
• CAD
• Lincoln Lab
• MIT
• interaction
• computer history
• light pen
• Bill Buxton