Early History of Computer Graphics

Early History of Computer Graphics

            We need to take a brief look at the historical development of computer graphics to place today's system in context. Crude plotting of hardcopy devices such as teletypes and line printers dates from the early days of computing. The  Whirlwind Computer developed in 1950 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) had computer-driven CRT displays for output. The SAGE air-defense system developed in the middle  1950s was the first to use command and control CRT display consoles on which operators identified targets with light pens(hand-held pointing devices that sense light emitted by objects on the screen). Later on Sketchpad system by Ivan Sutherland came in light. That was the beginning of modern interactive graphics. In this system, keyboard and light pen were used for pointing, making choices and drawing.

            At the same time, it was becoming clear to computer, automobile, and aerospace manufacturers that CAD and computer-aided manufacturing(CAM) activities had enormous potential for automating drafting and other drawing-intensive activities. The General Motors CAD system for automobile design , and the Itek Digitek system for lens design, were pioneering efforts that showed the utility of graphical interaction in the iterative design cycles common in engineering. By the mid-60s , a number of commercial products using these systems had appeared.

            At that time only the most technology-intensive organizations could use the interactive computer graphics whereas other used punch cards, a non-interactive system. Among the reasons for this were these:

·         The high cost of the graphics hardware-at a time when automobiles cost a few thousand dollors, computers cost several millions of dollors, and the first computer displays cost more that a hundred thousand dollors.

·         The need for large-scale, expensive computing resources to support massive design database.

·         The difficulty of writhing large, interactive programs using batch-oriented FORTRAN programming.

·         One of a kind , non portable software, typically written for a particular manufacturer's  display devices. When software is non-portable, moving to new display devices necessitates expensive and time-consuming rewriting of working programs.

This interactive computer graphics had a limited use when it started in the early sixties. But became very common once the Apple Macintosh and IBM PC appeared in  the market with affordable cost.