When did Illustrator first make available the "template" feature, enabling the user to draw on/over a dimmed background?

My first illustrator in 1987 was illustrator 1.1, then quickly to Illustrator 88 (which was technically version1.7) and it had the template feature from the beginning, as it was a core principle of how the program was to be used. Yes, Photoshop didn't exist, but scanners certainly did, and other simple images editors of the time were capable of dealing with the formats of the day. For a template, you just scanned your drawing then went with it as a simple bitmap PICT... there was no real need to edit it anyway. The scanner we first had with our system was an Abaton 4-bit scanner (top of the line in that day.. 16 levels of grey! woohoo! oh, and about $4000) and our monitor (Supermac 19" with video card 8-bit $9000) came with a high-end paint program called PixelPaint, which was miles above MacPaint or SuperPaint. Around the same time as Photoshop, Letraset had an awesome image program called ColorStudio (and a greyscale version called ImageSudio), both of which were more functional than Photoshop was when it first came out (PS was released first as a greyscale only program). It did many of the things Photoshop grew to be able to do, but the program was overpriced (It was over $2000 standalone in 1988) unless you got it in a bundle with a colour scanner (which is what we did when we got our first Microtek colour scanner which was massively enough on its own). When it came out, Photoshop (1990) was nearly half the price. Letraset didn't market ColorStudio very well,  didn't keep it up and it died soon after, although there were many things I missed from it that Photoshop didn't even have yet, like a Clone tool. yup. History is fun!

I stand corrected

You were prompted to have an image as a template (which was the common use at the time). But you could choose to go rogue and go without one!

Not only did the very first version of Illustrator have the template feature, in that version, it was required to have an image to start a new document. You were given a dialog to choose a bitmap image to use as your template when you first created a new document. Images came from the likes of MacPaint.

At the time, the entire idea of Illustrator was not to create original art from scratch, but rather to digitize an existing piece of art. I don’t even think the idea of using the pen tool to do anything other than trace a jagged line and turn it into a smooth scalable line existed.

Good times

I remember the first version of AI (1.1) had a simple "template" feature that allowed the user to open a PICT (1 bit I believe) that became a template. It was not accessible as a layer though. It took me a while to accept the new "template" workflow. Not sure what version that was.

That is an interesting question.  My guess it was not probably in the original Illustrator.  But added at some point after. I love it.

Originally I would scan drawings and then bring them into Illustrator.... but now I cheat by taking pics with my cell phone.  So much faster, then scanning.

But I love the template feature.... sometimes I start drawing from scratch and work 100% digitally.  Other times I use a template of a sketch that I did in pencil.  Maybe I am old school.

But awesome question and a good one for Adobe Trivia!

I have no idea if Mordy Golding is still on these forums, but he may be one of the few who could answer this definitively from memory.

As far as I remember Layers were introduced in Illustrator 5. Don't remember if template layers were available in the same version. Perhaps they came later.