Sketchpad, by Dr. Ivan Sutherland with comments by Alan Kay
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points people to it as the canonical demo of early interactive graphics, constraints and objects, and as one of Alan Kay's favorite things to show.
What it is
Earliest known footage of Ivan Sutherland's MIT PhD work, Sketchpad, the first computer graphics system, with commentary by Alan Kay. It shows light-pen drawing with constraints in a short clip.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2013 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec crdrost · 2024-07 · on “Defense of Lisp macros: The automotive field as a case in point”
Related to the visual simulations, one of Alan Kay's favorite demos over the years has been to show folks Sketchpad, [this video] partly as a "this is what we were doing in 1962, you are now as far removed from that demo as that demo was removed from the year 1900 -- do you really feel like you've made the analogous/concomitant progress in programming?" ... and one of his points there was that a lot of programming acts as a "pop music" where you are trying to replicate the latest new sounds and marginally iterate on those, rather than study the classics and the greats and the legacy of awesome things that had been done in the past.
Recommends aidos · 2016-02 · on “Programming computer animation in 1964 [video]”
So good. It never ceases to amaze me what could be done in such constrained systems (I guess it'll always look like that in retrospect). For anyone who has never seen it, Sketchpad, from the 60s: [LINK] Edit: With commentary from Alan Kay! [this video]
Recommends Jach · 2022-04 · on “Ask HN: Best way to learn about computing history?”
For "how things work", I recommend the book Code by Charles Petzold. After that, Jon Stokes's Inside the Machine will give a lot of details on CPU architectures up to Intel's Core 2 Duo. You can also try following along a computer engineering book if you want to go that low in detail with exercises, Digital Fundamentals by Floyd is a common textbook (I have an old 8th edition). History-wise, enjoy learning slowly because there's so much that even if you dedicated yourself to it you wouldn't be "done" any time soon! Some suggestions in order though: Watching The Mother of All Demos : [LINK] A short clip of Sketchpad presented by Alan Kay: [this video] An article from the 40s that also inspired Eng
Cites mpweiher · 2013-12 · on “Was Alan Kay wrong? And why does that matter?”
Reactive Programming[1] (not F RP): Look up ThingLab[2][3]. Done in 1978 on Smalltalk by Alan Borning. Alan Kay typically points to Sutherland's Sketchpad (1963)[4] as inventing objects, computer graphics and constraint programming. I have to admit I don't understand the hype over FRP. I mean it's great that you can now do reactive programing in FP as well, but it's not like this hasn't been around for ages. Anyhow, what Alan does is not co-opting , it is pointing out all the great work that has been forgotten and then reinvented, usually badly, in the hope that someone will finally do a better job than what went before. See also Brett Victor's talk "The Future of Programming"[5]. Brett work
Cites dpflan · 2015-07 · on “Pens Are Making a High-Tech Comeback”
Reminded me of Dr. Ivan Sutherland's "SketchPad" demo; here's a video of it with Alan Kay commenting: [this video]
Cites genmon · 2015-12 · on “The Intention Behind Think Kit”
Makes me think of what this would look like generalised... drawing with lines and shapes that have their own programmable constraints. See Sutherland's Sketchpad demo (1962!) [this video] Really this is when drawing goes beyond the physical world, and we get to start treating the computer as a co-worker. Snap-to-shape is the first step.
Cites f00_ · 2017-03 · on “An introductory course in computer programming (1965)”
what do you think of the visual programming in unreal engine similar for unity? have never used it, but supposedly you can go back and forth between c++ and the drag-and-drop interface i really like scratch, have started using this tool called pibakery that has a similar block-based interface: [LINK] If nothing else, visual programming is of educational value etc: Seymour Papert's Logo maybe fits in somewhere here (source of turtle graphics) sketchpad: [this video]
Cites Red_Tarsius · 2019-08 · on “MacPaint Evolution”
Go to www.macpaint.org for more info and a nice selection of classical artworks. I guess Ivan Sutherland's 1963 Sketchpad was a major influence on Bill Atkinson: a pioneering program that allowed users to draw and adjust lines on a monitor with a light pen! [this video] You can try MacPaint 2.0 (updated by David Ramsey in 1988) here [LINK]