[3] Evans first worked at the Bendix aviation electronics company, where he acted as project manager in 1955 to develop what some describe as an early personal computer that ran on an interpretive operating system.
His first important work with graphics dates from that period, when he did several experiments on an IDIOM display hooked up to a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-5.
[citation needed] In 1963, he was co-Principal Investigator (with Harry Huskey) for project Genie to produce an early multi-user timesharing system.
[5] The system, which included key developments in the field of virtual memory, was sponsored by the US Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Evans's students at Utah included Alan Kay, Edwin Catmull, James H. Clark, John Warnock, Alan Ashton, Frank Crow, Jim Blinn, Bui Tuong Phong, Gary Hodgman, and Henri Gouraud.