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T-Square (software)
Encyclopedia
T-Square was an early drafting
program written by Peter Samson
assisted by Alan Kotok
and possibly Robert A. Saunders while they were students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and members of the Tech Model Railroad Club
.
T-Square was written for the PDP-1
computer and its Type 30 precision CRT
that Digital Equipment Corporation
donated to MIT in 1961. It is unlikely that many people have had the opportunity to use T-Square although Samson has said the group drew some schematics.
and John McCarthy
discovered a stunning array of uses for the very expensive room-sized computers that were given to MIT. They were privileged to be enrolled when the school's first programming courses were taught.
They negotiated with their advisors and the operations manager John McKenzie for time and became single-users long before personal computer
s were available. About 1959 or 1960, some of this group of students became support staff and wrote software for about $1.75 USD per hour. They wrote the programming software which is used to build application software
. Later Samson and Kotok became architects of DEC computers.
, games
and page layout
so it is perhaps not surprising he wrote what may be the first drafting program. Based on this experience, later in life Samson worked on an electronic drafting program with 80,000 lines of code. He received a patent in virtual reality
at Autodesk
, a vendor of CAD
and CAM
software.
, T-Square used a Spacewar! game controller
built by Kotok and Saunders in 1962. It is not known if Saunders was involved in repurposing it for T-Square. Kotok, who was about 20 years old, did participate. He was known for doing what needed to be done and for taking an interest in "all things ingenious or intriguing."
Ivan Sutherland
used a light pen
in his programs as did Jack Gilmore and others before him. The pens allow fine detail but drawing on a vertical surface like a CRT tires the hand quickly. There is no evidence they studied ergonomics but T-Square used an input device more like a mouse in that it rested on a horizontal surface.
The Spacewar! control boxes were cobbled together with wood, Bakelite and toggle switches. Although they are often considered to be the first joystick
s, Kotok did not accept credit for coinventing them with Saunders. He thought there were similar controllers in use at the time in games such as Tennis for Two and at NASA or another organization.
T-Square is a small part of the reason people use today's computers for drafting, architecture, drawing and illustration and engineering. Prior to this revolution and in some places to this day, draftsmen and women used triangles
, wood or metal T-square
s, pencils and technical pen
s on film
and paper
. The beginning of this change can be seen in a video of Sutherland demonstrating Sketchpad
.
In his 1963 MIT Ph.D. thesis, Sutherland explains he completed an early version that could draw parallel and perpendicular lines in November 1961. He goes on to say, "Somewhat before my first effort was working, Welden Clark of Bolt, Beranek and Newman
..." showed him a "similar program" running on a PDP-1. T-Square and Sketchpad were developed in the same location a year or two apart but their influence on each other is unknown.
Steve Jobs
dates the age of productivity
software to around 1980-1995. T-Square preceded what he calls the first golden age of computing by about twenty years. The program had an influence on its authors's careers, particularly Samson's. T-Square is also important in the history of software due to enabling a craftsman
to use computer software in place of a physical tool.
Technical drawing
Technical drawing, also known as drafting or draughting, is the act and discipline of composing plans that visually communicate how something functions or has to be constructed.Drafting is the language of industry....
program written by Peter Samson
Peter Samson
Peter R. Samson is an American computer scientist, best known for creating pioneering computer software....
assisted by Alan Kotok
Alan Kotok
Alan Kotok was an American computer scientist known for his work at Digital Equipment Corporation and at the World Wide Web Consortium...
and possibly Robert A. Saunders while they were students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
and members of the Tech Model Railroad Club
Tech Model Railroad Club
The Tech Model Railroad Club is a student organization at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , and one of the most celebrated model railroad clubs in the world, because of its historic role as a wellspring of hacker culture...
.
T-Square was written for the PDP-1
PDP-1
The PDP-1 was the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1960. It is famous for being the computer most important in the creation of hacker culture at MIT, BBN and elsewhere...
computer and its Type 30 precision CRT
Cathode ray tube
The cathode ray tube is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun and a fluorescent screen used to view images. It has a means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam onto the fluorescent screen to create the images. The image may represent electrical waveforms , pictures , radar targets and...
that Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
donated to MIT in 1961. It is unlikely that many people have had the opportunity to use T-Square although Samson has said the group drew some schematics.
Authors
Students of Jack DennisJack Dennis
Jack Dennis is a computer scientist and retired MIT professor.Dennis entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1949 as an electrical engineering major; he received his MS degree in 1954, and continued doctoral research and received his ScD in 1958...
and John McCarthy
John McCarthy (computer scientist)
John McCarthy was an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist. He coined the term "artificial intelligence" , invented the Lisp programming language and was highly influential in the early development of AI.McCarthy also influenced other areas of computing such as time sharing systems...
discovered a stunning array of uses for the very expensive room-sized computers that were given to MIT. They were privileged to be enrolled when the school's first programming courses were taught.
They negotiated with their advisors and the operations manager John McKenzie for time and became single-users long before personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s were available. About 1959 or 1960, some of this group of students became support staff and wrote software for about $1.75 USD per hour. They wrote the programming software which is used to build application software
Application software
Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...
. Later Samson and Kotok became architects of DEC computers.
CAD
During this period Samson created other "firsts" in application software for musicHarmony Compiler
Harmony Compiler was written by Peter Samson at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . The compiler was designed to encode music for the PDP-1 and built on an earlier program Samson wrote for the TX-0 computer.]...
, games
Expensive Planetarium
Expensive Planetarium is the star display written by Peter Samson for Spacewar!, one of the first interactive computer games. Conceived and written by Massachusetts Institute of Technology students including Stephen Russell who programmed it, the Spacewar! game first ran in early 1962 on the PDP-1...
and page layout
TJ-2
TJ-2 was published by Peter Samson in May 1963 and is thought to be the first page layout program. Although it lacks page numbering, page headers and footers, TJ-2 is the first word processor to provide a number of essential typographic alignment and automatic typesetting features:*Columnation,...
so it is perhaps not surprising he wrote what may be the first drafting program. Based on this experience, later in life Samson worked on an electronic drafting program with 80,000 lines of code. He received a patent in virtual reality
Virtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
at Autodesk
Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational corporation that focuses on 3D design software for use in the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media and entertainment industries. The company was founded in 1982 by John Walker, a coauthor of the first versions of the company's...
, a vendor of CAD
Computer-aided design
Computer-aided design , also known as computer-aided design and drafting , is the use of computer technology for the process of design and design-documentation. Computer Aided Drafting describes the process of drafting with a computer...
and CAM
Computer-aided manufacturing
Computer-aided manufacturing is the use of computer software to control machine tools and related machinery in the manufacturing of workpieces. This is not the only definition for CAM, but it is the most common; CAM may also refer to the use of a computer to assist in all operations of a...
software.
Input device
To move the cursorCursor (computers)
In computing, a cursor is an indicator used to show the position on a computer monitor or other display device that will respond to input from a text input or pointing device. The flashing text cursor may be referred to as a caret in some cases...
, T-Square used a Spacewar! game controller
Game controller
A game controller is a device used with games or entertainment systems used to control a playable character or object, or otherwise provide input in a computer game. A controller is typically connected to a game console or computer by means of a wire, cord or nowadays, by means of wireless connection...
built by Kotok and Saunders in 1962. It is not known if Saunders was involved in repurposing it for T-Square. Kotok, who was about 20 years old, did participate. He was known for doing what needed to be done and for taking an interest in "all things ingenious or intriguing."
Ivan Sutherland
Ivan Sutherland
Ivan Edward Sutherland is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He received the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery in 1988 for the invention of Sketchpad, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface that has become ubiquitous in personal...
used a light pen
Light pen
A light pen is a computer input device in the form of a light-sensitive wand used in conjunction with a computer's CRT TV set or monitor. It allows the user to point to displayed objects, or draw on the screen, in a similar way to a touch screen but with greater positional accuracy...
in his programs as did Jack Gilmore and others before him. The pens allow fine detail but drawing on a vertical surface like a CRT tires the hand quickly. There is no evidence they studied ergonomics but T-Square used an input device more like a mouse in that it rested on a horizontal surface.
The Spacewar! control boxes were cobbled together with wood, Bakelite and toggle switches. Although they are often considered to be the first joystick
Joystick
A joystick is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Joysticks, also known as 'control columns', are the principal control in the cockpit of many civilian and military aircraft, either as a center stick or...
s, Kotok did not accept credit for coinventing them with Saunders. He thought there were similar controllers in use at the time in games such as Tennis for Two and at NASA or another organization.
Influence
Set square
A set square or triangle is an object used in engineering and technical drawing, with the aim of providing a straightedge at a right angle or other particular planar angle to a baseline....
, wood or metal T-square
T-square
A T-square is a technical drawing instrument used by draftsmen primarily as a guide for drawing horizontal lines on a drafting table. It may also guide a triangle to draw vertical or diagonal lines. Its name comes from the general shape of the instrument where the horizontal member of the T slides...
s, pencils and technical pen
Technical pen
A technical pen is a specialized instrument used by an engineer, architect, or drafter to make lines of constant width for architectural, engineering, or technical drawings. It has been also generally called "rapidograph", although that particular name is officially a trademarked line of products...
s on film
PET film (biaxially oriented)
BoPET is a polyester film made from stretched polyethylene terephthalate and is used for its high tensile strength, chemical and dimensional stability, transparency, reflectivity, gas and aroma barrier properties and electrical insulation.A variety of companies manufacture boPET and other...
and paper
Paper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
. The beginning of this change can be seen in a video of Sutherland demonstrating Sketchpad
Sketchpad
Sketchpad was a revolutionary computer program written by Ivan Sutherland in 1963 in the course of his PhD thesis, for which he received the Turing Award in 1988. It helped change the way people interact with computers...
.
In his 1963 MIT Ph.D. thesis, Sutherland explains he completed an early version that could draw parallel and perpendicular lines in November 1961. He goes on to say, "Somewhat before my first effort was working, Welden Clark of Bolt, Beranek and Newman
BBN Technologies
BBN Technologies is a high-technology company which provides research and development services. BBN is based next to Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA...
..." showed him a "similar program" running on a PDP-1. T-Square and Sketchpad were developed in the same location a year or two apart but their influence on each other is unknown.
Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...
dates the age of productivity
Productivity
Productivity is a measure of the efficiency of production. Productivity is a ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it. Usually this ratio is in the form of an average, expressing the total output divided by the total input...
software to around 1980-1995. T-Square preceded what he calls the first golden age of computing by about twenty years. The program had an influence on its authors's careers, particularly Samson's. T-Square is also important in the history of software due to enabling a craftsman
Artisan
An artisan is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewellery, household items, and tools...
to use computer software in place of a physical tool.