Sketch Pad

SketchPad was the first interactive drawing program, written in 1963 by IvanSutherland as the basis of his tour-de-force thesis. It included visual constraints, character recognition, freehand drawing with smoothing, and animation.

• It also featured instances of master drawings, which would instantly update to match any changes to the master. (I suppose this is another kind of visual constraint too).

AlanBlackwell of the University of Cambridge is working with IvanSutherland to make a new electronic edition of the thesis available online, in late 2003. In the meantime, the original can be viewed at http://theses.mit.edu/Dienst/UI/2.0/Describe/0018.mit.theses/1963-10

It is now available as a PDF at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/TechReports/UCAM-CL-TR-574.pdf

AlanKay insists that all of user interface design for the last 30 years was done in SketchPad first (and then some). He has the videos to prove it. -- He also credits it as the first ObjectOriented system and an important influence on SmalltalkLanguage.

• Part 1 of Alan Kay's DoingWithImagesMakesSymbols talk has footage and discussion of SketchPad (as well as TheMotherOfAllDemos). His EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk also discusses SketchPad in some detail.
• Ha! His pop-up pie menus didn't have drop-shadows!

See also GraphicalProgramEditor.

CategoryInteractionDesign CategoryHistory