Ivan Sutherland is a pioneer in the field of computer graphics. His 1960 "Sketchpad" system contributed to the development of computer graphics, computer simulation, and video games as we know them today.

Ivan Edward Sutherland was born in Hastings, Nebraska, on May 16, 1938. His first experience with computing was in high school, where as a young student he build various relay-driven machines. In the early 1950s, computers were exciting and exotic devices, and many bright students set their sights on that field.

Sutherland received his B.S. from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1959, his M.S. from the California Institute of Technology in 1960, and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) in 1963. Throughout college Sutherland was always interested in logic and computing; he held a summer job with International Business Machines (IBM) after he got his bachelor's degree, and he switched from Cal Tech...