Sketchpad

Sketchpad, the first interactive computer-graphics program. Sketchpad originated as American engineer Ivan Sutherland’s doctoral thesis project in the early 1960s and was one of the first graphical user interfaces. The program allowed users to visualize and control program functions and became a foundation for computer graphics, computer operating system interfaces, and software applications that are used in many facets of modern technology.

In 1961 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduate student Sutherland developed a primitive application, Sketchpad, that would run on the TX-2, one of the first programmable computers, at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory. The TX-2 had twice the memory capacity of the largest commercial machines and impressive programmable capabilities. The computer possessed 320 KB (kilobytes) of memory and powered a 23-cm (9-inch) cathode-ray tube (CRT) display. Sketchpad displayed graphics on the CRT display, and a light pen was used to manipulate the line objects, much like a modern computer mouse. Various computer switches controlled aspects of the graphics such as size and ratio. In 1963 Sutherland published his doctoral thesis, “Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communications System.”

Sketchpad’s process for drawing lines and shapes was quite complicated. The system’s functionality was heavily electrical and used electronic pulses shared between the photoelectric cell of the light pen and an electronic gun fired from the CRT. The timing of the pulse displayed a cursor to represent the light pen’s position on the screen and thus converted the computer screen into a sketchpad upon which objects could be drawn.

How objects in Sketchpad could be visualized and modeled on a screen became the foundation for modern graphical computing used in advertising, business, entertainment, architecture, and Web design. In 1964 Sutherland collaborated with David Evan at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City to initiate one of the first educational computer-graphics labs. Sketchpad also led to the advanced development of other imaging software, such as computer-aided design programs used by engineers.