Programming Computer Animation in 1964 - AT&T Archives

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NOTE: film is silent.
A corollary to A Computer Technique for the Production of Animated Movies, this film illustrates the first part of the process-what the program looked like, and how a program would get fed in to the computer and then rendered.
The process was used in most of the mid-1960s computer graphics films produced at Bell Laboratories, though the film shows the simplest types of programs and renderings as examples. This film was produced by R.H. Hudgin (a student) and E.E. Zajac. Hudgin and Zajac used conventional typeset artwork, programming output and Ken Knowlton's early BEFLIX graphics program to produce the film. Note that the computer punch cards shown were actually branded with Bell System logos.
Footage Courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ

[@RyanSchweitzer77]

Neither, as mentioned in the video description above, it was done with a language (and program) developed at Bell Labs called BEFLIX, which was based off of FORTRAN, IIRC.

[@ewaf88]

Guys guys - stop what you're doing - this early work lead to the Transformers film being made

[@cumhachd]

It sure does look like a FORTRAN dialect, and I'd guess BEFLIX is essentially a graphics library for FORTRAN, rather than a separate language, but that's splitting hairs I'll admit. Still it is really interesting to see what they were doing inside Bell labs many years before the average person had an concept of computing.

[@eltranced]

gosh im glad we've progressed

[@ProLogic-dr9vv]

AT&T Tech Channel: The Timex Sinclair mini computer and Super 800(an Apple clone) also used "Call" command

[@jamesslick4790]

Pro. Logic As did the TI-99/4A.

[@racecarjohnny9806]

this is either FOCAL, BASIC or FORTRAN.

[@kynan9465]

Or BEFLIX?

[@mandolinic]

Looks a lot like FORTRAN to me. The DO loop looks identical.

[@SKDYCAT]

@@mandolinic its beflix

[@kwisatzhaderach1458]

I love this

[@kalbossa]

Looks like old atari arcade games

[@Bloomengns]

Was this done in Assembler or Basic?

[@MichaelSartore]

Reminds me of TURTLE

[@alexandergabrielalqueza3640]

There's a computer back in the 40s?

[@jimgrady7458]

Yes, his name was Bob. 😁