See this opening for Vertigo
and then realize this:
However, what if CGI in films went back even further, to 1957 1958? I heard about this possibility through a video presented by John Hess on some film special effects history. He mentioned that a computer was used in creating the opening sequence for Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Vertigo. I watched it, and was amazed! Yes! These look like computer graphics!
An article in Rhizome describes it, saying that John Whitney programmed these graphics using a computer that was originally designed to aim artillery during WW II. A pendulum (which contained pressurized paint) was placed above a drawing surface that was attached to a platform. The platform was moved by the computer according to mathematical equations as the pendulum swung back and forth across it. This created precise spiral designs. There’s a part of the opening sequence where you can see these spiral designs change shape. These changes were created by altering the formulas for each frame that was drawn by the computer/pendulum combination. In my mind, this is similar to how computers interacted with oscilloscopes in the earliest visual computer displays, though it sounds like the computer could not turn the paint on and off.
Original source: Were the first movie computer graphics in a Hitchcock film?
Abacus Noir 