KinSyn and the History of Kinematic Synthesis
My first experience with computer based kinematic synthesis was a 1982 presentation by Roger Kaufman of his KinSyn linkage design software on an Apple II microcomputer. This is a link to his description of his experience in those early days of computer-aided design of linkages.
His paper that describes this software can be found here. The photos are a terrific look into the computer technology in the 1970’s.
Here is a video that describes the operation of KinSyn, which I find to be an impressive integration of kinematics calculations in the background with a useful graphical presentation of information to the designer. I have to say that the graphical display was impressive in its day.
