Harri K. Hiltunen's answer: What they wanted, and how it went:
The sick sad history of computer-aided collaboration
1. Vannevar Bush invented the Memex crowd thinking desktop environment with redundancy-merging hypertext wiki 1939–1945.
He had designed analog computers and founded the Manhatta...
Visionaries:
Vannevar Bush
Douglas Engelbart
Alan Kay
Ted Nelson
Bret Victor
to make a tolerable user interface. Could be fun to program by hand motions instead of typing
Like “American Sign Language” instead of applying a Morse-code paddle or a keyboard?
Could be fun
So far my impression is that is what was going on, entertainment and playing around. Analog oscilloscopes were some of the earliest interactive video game machines. “the game “Tennis for Two” developed by William Higinbotham in 1958. This game used an analog computer connected to an oscilloscope screen to display the game.” - https://aliant.tech/en/news/the-first-video-game
Like “American Sign Language” instead of applying a Morse-code paddle or a keyboard?
So far my impression is that is what was going on, entertainment and playing around. Analog oscilloscopes were some of the earliest interactive video game machines. “the game “Tennis for Two” developed by William Higinbotham in 1958. This game used an analog computer connected to an oscilloscope screen to display the game.” - https://aliant.tech/en/news/the-first-video-game