The First Computer Design Coloring Book

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Stanley Baxendale

1979

Book

The Library

Description

The First Computer Design Coloring Book by Stanley Baxendale was possibly the earliest example of a publishing trend that continued into the 1980s, reflecting growing public interest in computer-generated graphics.

Published in 1979 by Harmony Books in New York, the book features 85 computer-generated designs on removable sheets so they can be colored and displayed—“156 pages of endless enjoyment for everyone from 8 to 80,” according to one advertisement.

Baxendale, a professor of computer science at Rutgers, wrote the programs in Basic on a Tektronix 4051 microcomputer that controlled a plotter. The resulting designs are divided into eight categories, including planetary orbits, logarithmic spirals, kaleidoscopes, and variations on traditional Japanese motifs.

“The book might be of more interest to computer enthusiasts if the programs [...] were included,” wrote a reviewer in the January 1980 issue of Creative Computing magazine, “but that would probably double or triple the size—and the price—of this attractive book that looks just as good on your coffee table as in the children’s playroom.”