16 Oct
2008
16 Oct
'08
8:13 a.m.
Furthermore, what's a "graphical
display", anyway? Most people seem to make
the distinction between graphics and text-mode terminals - so maybe early CRTs
etc. that only display machine state or rudimentary characters don't count?
Perhaps the first graphical display is one that can render some form of
graphics primitives (lines, arcs etc.) direct from software using a bitmapped
or vector display?
That's a reasonable principle -- something that can generate fairly arbitrary graphics
that change in real time.
PDP-1 Spacewar certainly fits that definition. So does the CDC 6600 console (3 years
later). Neither of those do hardware vectors, but drawing lines given dot-plotting
isn't a big deal so long as the graphics complexity is modest. (In the 6600, the job
was made easier by the fact that the hardware did support character plotting.)
paul