An industry perspective on the beginnings of CAD

This paper is a discussion of the early days of CAM-CAD at The Boeing Company, covering the period approximately 1956 to 1965. This period saw probably the first successful industrial application of ideas that were gaining ground during the very early days of the computing era. Although the primary goal of the CAD activity was to find better ways of building the 727 airplane, this activity led quickly to the more general area of computer graphics, leading eventually to today's picture-dominated use of computers. The paper started as an internal exchange of memories between some of the people primarily concerned, but is now offered as the possible start of a discussion involving other such initiatives during that period.