PINBALL (something flashy with buttons) was a demo. And that demo got us to the moon:
"Apparently, nobody had yet arrived at any kind of software requirements for the AGC's user interface when the desire arose within the Instrumentation Laboratory to set up a demo guidance-computer unit with which to impress visitors to the lab. Of course, this demo would have to do something, if it was going to be at all impressive, and to do something it would need some software. In short order, some of the coders threw together a demo program, inventing and using the verb/noun user-interface concept, but without any idea that the verb/noun concept would somehow survive into the flight software. As time passed, and more and more people became familiar with the demo, nobody got around to inventing an improvement for the user interface, so the coders simply built it into the flight software without any specific requirements to do so."[1]
# THE KEYBOARD AND DISPLAY SYSTEM PROGRAM OPERATES UNDER EXECUTIVE
# CONTROL AND PROCESSES INFORMATION EXCHANGED BETWEEN THE AGC AND THE
# COMPUTER OPERATOR. THE INPUTS TO THE PROGRAM ARE FROM THE KEYBOARD,
# FROM INTERNAL PROGRAM, AND FROM THE UPLINK.
I think it's just someone with a sense of humor.