Sketchpad - Ivan E. Sutherland

Paper Bibliography
Sutherland, I. E. (1964, January). Sketch pad a man-machine graphical communication system. In Proceedings of the SHARE design automation workshop (pp. 6-329). ACM.

Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad system created not only a new modality for interaction with a computer, but also contributed greatly to the development of object oriented programming, CAD software, and the graphical user interface in general.

As current day computer scientists read this paper, they may be confused, that is until they see the date it was originally published: 1963. The paper spends ample time discussing not the novel interface of a pen, but rather the novelty of the algorithms and design which underpinned the content created through the pen. The early roots of object oriented programming can be seen as Sutherland describes the creation of instances from a master. Furthermore, the ideas of polymorphism and inheritance are touched upon in that though instances are originally copies of their masters, they can also be modified to be different from their original masters. 

Aside from pioneering major aspects of object oriented programming, Sutherland's program reflects many of the core components of modern day CAD software. The ability to apply constraints and relationships to and between drawn shapes was pivotal in giving computer software a role in drafting and design problems. With Sutherland's creation, the computer suddenly became a more competent and faster solution than traditional drafting.

Finally, the concept of screen graphics and pen input was extraordinarily ahead of its time. In an age where graphical displays were novel, Sutherland's work materialized concepts that were only seen as a distant vision in the course of technology. The undoubtable impact of this work is evident by simply surveying the changes and innovations which have occurred since its publication. While there have been vast increases in speed and accuracy, along with expansions of this work, it is fair to say that much of the original work found in this paper remains as the basis for modern systems.