Programming with On-Line Graphics

Bert Sutherland demonstrates his pioneering 1966 MIT PhD work on interactive visual programming using a stylus on the TX-2 computer.

This is a generally unknown important historical film which demonstrates pioneering work on interactive visual programming done by Bert Sutherland at Lincoln Lab, as part of his 1966 PhD thesis at MIT: Sutherland, William Robert (1966). The On-Line Graphical Specification of Computer Procedures, Ph.D. Dissertation Massachusetts Institute of Technology. dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/13474 The work was done on the TX-2 computer, and builds on a number of concepts developed by the well-known Sketchpad system developed by Bert's younger brother, Ivan Sutherland. Sketchpad showed how graphical images could be interactively constructed on the TX-2. Bert's system demonstrated that individual graphical objects could represent chunks of code that could be "wired" together in a way that enabled one to write a program. The idea was that the data of the program flowed from one module to another. This is demonstrated in this film, where Bert writes a program which calculates the square roots of a number entered by the user. The system demonstrates the ability to support hierarchy and encapsulation - that is, partsof the program could be chunked together into separate modules, each represented by a graphical icon. Programming was accomplished by directing the output of one module to the input of another. One could also enter inputs manually, such as from the keyboard, and one could also have any of the module's outputs displayed on the screen. This system paved the way for later graphical programming systems, such as MAX/MSP and LabVIEW, for example. This is just brilliant work, and an important part of our history. It not only deserves to be known by those interested in interaction and programming, it also sets a high bar that should keep us all from being complacent in our own work. For more information on the work done at Lincoln Lab, see: Buxton, William (2005). Interaction at Lincoln Laboratory in the 1960's: Looking Forward -- Looking Back . Panel Introduction. Proceedings of the 2005 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI'05 , April 3-7, 2005, 1163-1167. billbuxton.com/LincolnLab.pdf