How Did Ivan Sutherland Help Create Modern Computing?

While working on his Ph.D. thesis in 1962 at M.I.T., Sutherland created Sketchpad on a Lincoln TX-2 computer and started a revolution in computer graphics. Sketchpad was significant in various ways. It introduced the concept of a graphical user interface. It was also a forerunner of interactive computing.

As a Pentagon official in 1965, Sutherland posited the idea of “The Ultimate Display,” in which a computer could control matter within a room, shaping and reshaping physical objects to create arbitrary environments. This would occupy generations of science fiction writers and influence ideas like the holodeck in “Star Trek.”

His 1968 “Head Mounted Display” was the first augmented reality device. This paved the way for today’s research in augmented and virtual reality.

This six-legged hexapod walking machine was thought to be the first computer-controlled walking machine designed to carry humans. In 1985, Sutherland showed the device to Claude Shannon, his Ph.D. supervisor, who was famous for naming the “bit” in computing and for his pioneering information theory.

Sutherland taught computer science at the University of Utah, Harvard, Caltech and Carnegie Mellon and became a mentor to a generation of computer scientists who would go on to create today’s computer industry.