History Of Computer Graphics - Introduction Page


The following material is reprinted with permission from this source.
The original website used to be here. (Link is now dead)

According to the source, the original material reference is: Becoming a Computer Animator
by  Michael Morrison

Brief Introduction


Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) opened in August 1957 in Maynard, Massachusetts. With only three employees they had 8,500 square feet of production space in a converted woolen mill. Lawn chairs made up most of their furniture but in November 1960 they introduced the PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor) the world's first small, interactive computer. Thirty years later, Digital would post Fiscal revenues of $12.9 billion with over 124,000 employees worldwide. Along the way, Digital would play important roles in the progress of computer graphics.
In the mid 1990's DEC was purchased by Compaq and in 2001, Compaq was purchased by Hewlett Packard (HP) in a $25 billion deal. (The deal was conluded in April 2002.)

In 1959 the first computer drawing system, DAC-1 (Design Augmented by Computers) was created by General Motors and IBM. It allowed the user to input a 3D description of an automobile and then rotate it and view it from different directions. It was unveiled at the Joint Computer Conference in Detroit in 1964.



Click on the 'year-links' to read about what happened that decade. (e.g. 1960= the 60's)
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 and beyond
Also, take a look at this article. The birth of the pixel. (Tom's Hardware)
...and this article about Cornell's Program of Computer Graphics. (Metropolismag.com)

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