Document Type : Research Paper

Author

• Khosro Khajeh (Translation)

Abstract

My first contact with GIS was in 1965 at a meeting at the Harvard University and Michigan Institute of Technology’s Joint Center for Urban Studies, and I came across a good accident by sitting next to Howard Fisher. At that time, Howard Fisher intended to leave the University of
Chicago and was therefore visiting Harvard University.
Fisher had recently invented SYMAP, a computer-based mapping application that worked on linear printer technology, but was not yet at operational state. I immediately took advantage of the opportunity; relying on his words about the SYMP abilities and the requirements of his doctoral thesis, I convinced him to allow me to carry out experiments using his original program. With the supervision and guidance of Fisher, I implemented the first applied SYMP test in my studies of Boston's central perceptual geography. It was to some extent due to this work that I was first appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Harvard School of Design, and started working as a novice researcher in a laboratory known today as the computer cartographic labs.