Over at BoingBoing, one reads that “Kitty” is an early realistic computer animation from 1968:
Kitty is an early computer animation, created by a group of Soviet physicists and mathematicians in 1968. It was made on a BESM-4 computer. The computer used alphabetical characters (similar to ASCII art) to make the images, transferred the resulting animation to a printer, and then a camera photographed the animation frames to create the video. This could possibly be the world’s first computer-generated video. I can’t get over how cool this cat looks. I want it on a t-shirt!
In 1968 a group of Soviet physicists and mathematicians with N.Konstantinov as its head created a mathematical model for the motion of a cat. On a BESM-4 computer they devised a program for solving the ordinary differential equations for this model. The Computer printed hundreds of frames on paper using alphabet symbols that were later filmed in sequence thus creating the first realistic computer animation of a character, a walking cat [Kitty (1968) – Computer Animation history-CGI!]