Where did computer art, computer graphics, and computer animation start?
Written communication became shareable and ubiquitous once stone carvings were replaced by the mobility of paper and ink. Similarly, once computer languages advanced from machine or assembler code to third-generation computer languages, only then did computer output move from simple alphanumeric printouts (perhaps tiles) to smoothly curved graphics and images. and realism.
Computer graphics output had its humble beginning when alphanumeric characters were hammered into TTY and line printers to represent XY graphics and even tiled images. It was crude, but it allowed for more effective analysis of mathematical and scientific solutions. Computer programming languages such as FORTRAN and BASIC made it easier to develop and program printers, plotters, and CRT screens to display and print graphics and ultimately images.
The FORTRAN Programming Language: A Brief Personal and Historical Overview.
FORTRAN programming as an art medium?
So it was possible to create an alphanumeric print image of the famous Mona Lisa using FORTRAN print statements. This image of the Mona Lisa was made by printing and overprinting standard alphanumeric characters creating a mosaic work of art to form an image of that famous Leonardo da Vinci painting. Step back from this computer print and you saw a simple replica of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
Achieving this rudimentary computational art would take hours and days of tedious work involving the following steps:
1) You would need to take a copy of the original image and grid (assigning the 133 character width of a standard computer print page) onto a transparency.
2) Place the grid transparency on top of the image, and then fill the grid cells above the image with alphanumeric characters that will represent a tile of the original image.
3) Highlight the grid cells to be overprinted (bold) to create shadows and textures that match the original image.
4) Now take each line of the grid and encode it using FORTRAN print instructions.
5) Like a brush on a canvas, the computer-printed image of Mona Lisa will take shape after many days of coding.
For a full version of this process and a resulting computer mosaic of the Mona Lisa, see the Pisaca web album images at: http://picasaweb.google.com/carl.chesal/MonaLisaComputerArtFortran
The search for an 80-column punch card reader is on.
The FORTRAN code for the Mona Lisa mosaic is on the original 90-column punch cards. Gaining access to an 80-column card reader could make it easier to move Mona Lisa’s FORTRAN code from its analog state to a digital version. Using an online editor, I was once again able to deploy the power of FORTRAN to print copies of the Mona Lisa ‘computer mosaic’. Then ‘Mosaic Mona’ would be available for the world to enjoy.
My obsession with FORTRAN programming could be due to the fact that both FORTRAN and I were created coincidentally in 1954. Thanks John Backus for FORTRAN.