A report on the use of FORTRAN-coded EXPLOR for the teaching of computer graphics and computer art
Ken Knowlton · 1972
A FORTRAN-coded version of my EXPLOR language (for the production of images from explicit patterns, local operations and randomness) has been used to teach computer graphics and computer art to a collection of undergraduate students in art and computer science at the University of California at Santa Cruz. My conclusions are (1) that this particular language makes it possible for relatively inexperienced programmers readily to produce a wide variety of interesting designs, (2) that a rather significant scope and quality of computer graphics can be done with simply a line printer as the output device (other equipment became available during the program) and (3) that teaching of the important concepts of computing can be facilitated by the use of graphic output - i.e. graphics can be considered an effective approach to computing as well as vice versa.