computer graphics in the 1950s

As I've been reading this thread, it occurs to me that one of the big problems that arises with these "what was the first" questions is that they're usually asked from a user's point of view. But the question is being asked of people who know what's really going on behind the curtain. Not to pick on this particular question, but between a text display and a graphics display is just not so big as to be an interesting question. But if we ask the question from a designer's point of view, such as, "what was the first CRT display that was under program control and was included for the express purpose of being an output device?" There's still room to debate a bit, but it gets to the salient features and we're more likely to have a useful answer. Just random 2 cents.. BLS