“ how computers might be different had they been designed by visual thinkers”

The title of the video is "Viewpoint demo" or "Viewpoint: Toward a computer for visual thinkers", (1987) is also appropriate.

It's a strange interface for a graphics/text editor, lots of weird features in the behavior.

For instance the font is anything you draw onto the on-screen keyboard, and word wrapping logic uses those same graphics to decide what is graphics and what is text. The "graphical boot" at 12:15 where he shows how the interface is constructed is a bit painful to watch but fascinating.

The fundamental idea seems to be that the on-screen bitmap is the only state and some of the logic, the user and processor work together on modifying it based on a few things the processor can do automatically.

Not watched the video, but hate to tell you, they are designed by visual thinkers. Linearization comes after the fact; one has to be able to visualize the operation of the logic networks etc during the design - and debug - processes. Things happen in parallel a lot inside a computer, no way is linear thinking going to create that. Validate, yes, but not create.

At least, that's my experience, not just of myself but of a number of the early inventors of these things that I happen to bump into a few times a year. Those still surviving that is.