Conveying ideas and stories visually—that is a presentation. This goes back to the Paleolithic age¹. Cave paintings and illustrations were the basis of visually conveying stories. Whether it was a cave wall, a scrap of paper, flip charts, chalkboards, blackboards, cardboard slides; presenting has traditionally been visual. This tradition of a physical visual medium to tell a story is carried all the way through 1600s where a huge leap forward occurred, the Magic Lantern.
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The Magic Lantern was an invention that wouldn’t have been possible without technology like the camera obscura and the telescope. The way it functioned was essentially an ancient projector. A lamp as the light source and hand painted glass slides in a box². This technology was not widely used due to the cost of production until much later but would serve as the basis for the overhead projector and all its iterations.

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The overhead projector was developed in the United States of America and was primarily used for training in the military. It consisted of a lightbulb, transparencies, and a slide holder. Eventually it would make its way into higher education and business around the 1950s³. Presenting in this way created what is now called a slide show. This technology is still used today, but with the introduction of software presentation, doesn’t see nearly as much use.

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In 1979, the first commercial presentation software would be released, BRUNO. Then the first microcomputer based presentation software would be released by Cromemco under the name Slidemaster in 1981⁴. But it wasn’t until 1983 when Presenter, created by Forethought Inc, would enter development for 4 years before it was released. 3 months after release, Microsoft acquired the company. This will eventually be developed into what we now know as PowerPoint. PowerPoint would eventually go on to change the presentation industry.
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Throughout history, presentations have always been about storytelling. From cave paintings to projectors, people are always evolving the ways in which we express ourselves. Nowadays, we have Microsoft PowerPoint, Canva, Prezi, Apple Keynote and many other presentation software. Slide shows are used in multiple industries, disciplines, and professions and a wide variety of people interact with them every single day. It has become an integral part of modern day life. Who knows where it will go next. My thoughts? I think as the software becomes streamlined, we will see a lot of crossover between VFX and animation software with modern day presentation software. I also see presentation software as a while becoming more plugin friendly, bringing in other assets into your presentation that it wouldn’t normally be able to create on it own.
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1. The Prehistoric Ages: How Humans Lived Before Written Records (history.com)
2. Microsoft Word – Document1 (magiclantern.org.uk)
3. The projection of chemical lecture experiments onto the screen | Journal of Chemical Education (acs.org)
4. Computerworld (Google Books)