Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
immense. It allowed the user to draw straight onto the screen, and
to manipulate what had been drawn. This was made possible by
storing the images as data in the computer's memory. This meant
that they could be manipulated as mathematical data. Sketchpad
showed that the computer could be used as a visual medium. But
it also introduced the idea of the virtual image or object, which
have quasi-real existences. Sketchpad constituted the beginnings
of, among other things, computer graphics and virtual reality.
Sutherland went on to develop technologies specifically designed for
virtual reality, including headsets.
The idea of the computer as a visual tool encouraged Douglas
Engelbart, another researcher whose work Licklider and IPTO
funded. Engelbart had been inspired by an influential article by the
18 Ivan Sutherland
sitting at a terminal
running Sketchpad,
one of the first and
most influential
computer graphics
programs, early
1960s.
scientist and pioneer of the scientific calculating machine Vannevar
Bush. Published in the Atlantic Monthly in
, when Bush was
acting as a special scientific advisor to President Roosevelt, 'As
We May Think'
28
proposed a solution to the increasing demands
of information retrieval in the form of a device called 'Memex'.
This would allow the operator to input text, drawings and notes
through a dry photocopier or through head-mounted stereo camera
spectacles. This information could be stored in a microfiche filing
1945
