I wanted to make drawings on that computer, because I liked drawings, and I liked to make them neat, and the computer delivered that. I did it because it was interesting to do. “Being able to draw on a computer screen was totally unusual and unexpected, and awakened a lot of people to the possibility of using computer graphics,” the new laureate remarked.Īsked if he could imagine then the kind of applications his work would inspire, Sutherland admitted he had “no idea what it would lead to. In conversation yesterday after hearing of the award, Sutherland gave thanks to Wesley Clark, builder of “what was then the world’s biggest computer, the TX-2” for letting him use it “for hours at a time” to develop Sketchpad. Sketchpad provided a light pen and commands to draw directly on a computer display, to zoom in and out, and to transform objects.” The program “laid the foundations for intuitive and powerful human-computer interaction through drawing and manipulating shapes and icons rather than through typing commands. It is in honor of these achievements that the committee describes him as “the father of computer graphics.”Īt a time when punch cards were the norm, the ideas behind Sketchpad were “revolutionary,” says the awards committee.
SKETCHPAD IVAN SUTHERLAND WINDOWS
It described the Sketchpad program, which showed that computer graphics could provide a more natural interaction between user and machine, and is generally regarded as the predecessor of the graphical interfaces we know today, from the windows system begun by Apple to the icons of our smartphone apps. Sutherland gave notice of his visionary talent with his doctoral thesis, presented at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1963 under the supervision of Claude Shannon, the “father” of information theory. Nowadays, “everybody using a computer or smartphone benefits from his vision and contributions.” In a career spanning more than six decades, Sutherland has paired “a deep knowledge of technology with an understanding of human behavior to transform computer interaction,” the citation continues.
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