In his mind and at his hands, he experienced an immediacy in perceiving how things fit and worked together. From his youth, Sutherland possessed an unusually keen spatial, geometric intuition. To get at this wellspring, start with geometry. The description fits Sutherland well, although it also misses something important: There is a commonality in his many accomplishments, a shared wellspring for his many parts. There is a phrase, popular in 17th and 18th century England, that occurs to me when thinking about Ivan Sutherland: “A man of many parts.” The phrase refers to an individual who had made serious contributions to a domain, while also possessing multiple, and often diverse, talents and pursuits. The Museum is making this oral history interview public during the 60th anniversary year of Sutherland’s breakthrough in interactive computer graphics, the program Sketchpad, for which he earned his Ph.D. And the two-part video of the interview is available here and here.īob Sproull, a lifelong colleague of Sutherland and himself a major figure in computing, served as instigator, interviewer, and editor for these oral histories, and he involved me, Marc Weber, and Jim Waldo in the effort. The interview transcripts can be downloaded here and here. These interviews present a wonderful opportunity to learn more about Sutherland’s life in computing, in his own words. The Computer History Museum recently made public its two-part oral history with Sutherland. One of the most influential figures in the story of computing, he helped to open new pathways for others to explore and dramatically extend: interactive computer graphics, virtual reality, 3D computer graphics, and asynchronous systems, to name but a few. Ivan Sutherland has blazed a truly unique trail through computing over the past six decades.
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