Ed Catmull, president of Pixar and Disney Animation is a computer science legend. The National Film Preservation Board has finally decided to recognize it by adding Catmull's film A Computer Animated Hand to the National Film Registry. Catmull made the film in 1972 while a student at University of Utah and may very well be the world's first rendered 3D computer animated film. The film later appeared in the 1976 sci-fi movie Futureworld.

Ed Catmull was co-founder of the original computer graphics and hardware group at Lucasfilm which was later bought by Steve Jobs and became Pixar Animation Studios.