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| PCPaint | |
|---|---|
 A demonstration of PCPaint | |
| Original authors | John Bridges Doug Wolfgram |
| Developer | Microtex Industries forMouse Systems |
| Initial release | 1984; 41 years ago (1984) |
| Stable release | PCPaint 3.1 / 1989; 36 years ago (1989) |
| Operating system | DOS |
| Type | Graphics software |
PCPaint was one of the firstIBM PC-based mouse-drivenGUI paint programs, released in 1984. It followed afterMicrosoft Doodle, released in 1983 with theMicrosoft Mouse version 1drivers for DOS, and around the same time asDigital Research’s Draw program. It was developed and created byJohn Bridges and Doug Wolfgram. It was later developed intoPictor Paint.
The hardware manufacturerMouse Systems bundled PCPaint with millions ofcomputer mice that they sold, making PCPaint one of the best-sellingDOS-based paint programs of the mid 1980s.
In 1983, Doug Wolfgram bought aMicrosoft Mouse and decided to write a drawing program for it. They named it “Mouse Draw”. The interface was primitive but the program functioned well. Wolfgram traveled to SoftCon in New Orleans where he demonstrated the program to Mouse Systems. Mouse Systems was developing anoptical mouse and they wanted to bundle a painting program so they agreed to publish Mouse Draw. The original program was written entirely inassembly language with primitive graphics routines developed by Wolfgram.[citation needed]
John Bridges worked for an educational software company, Classroom Consortia Media, Inc., developing and writing Apple and IBM graphicslibraries for CCM's software. Bridges and Wolfgram were friends who had been connected through a bulletin board system developed and run by Wolfgram. The two collaborated cross country via theBBS, Wolfram in California and Bridges in New York.[citation needed]
Mouse Systems wanted the paint program to capture the look and feel of MacPaint. John Bridges and Doug Wolfgram started reworking Mouse Draw into what became PCPaint. The program was completely re-written using Bridge's graphics library and the top-level elements were written inC rather than assembly language. Bridges developed the core graphics code for the first version of PCPaint while Wolfgram worked on the user interface and top-level code. Mouse Systems signed an exclusive agreement with Wolfgram's company, Microtex Industries, Inc., to bundle PCPaint with every mouse they sold.[citation needed] They began publishing PCPaint with their mice in 1984.
Microsoft responded in 1985 by bundling a competing product,PC Paintbrush, with version 4 of its DOS drivers for theMicrosoft Mouse, replacing its in-house Microsoft Doodle program which it published with version 1 of the DOS drivers in 1983. Microsoft’s mouse began to outsell Mouse Systems mouse. In November 1985 Microsoft bundled a cut-down version of PC Paintbrush withWindows 1.0 (calledMicrosoft Paint), later bundling an updated version of PC Paintbrush withWindows 3.0 (as Paintbrush), impacting PCPaint’s marketshare.
In early 1987, Mouse Systems decided that PCPaint wasn't helping to sell mice any longer so they discontinued the bundle deal and returned rights to the code to MicroTex Industries, but retained rights to the name, PCPaint. Wolfgram then combined the paint program with a new animation system he was developing (calledGRASP) and Paul Mace Software bought publishing rights to the animation system and PCPaint, which was to be renamedPictor. Bridges again got involved and took over programming responsibilities for GRASP as well as PCPaint while Wolfgram focused on more of the business details.
In creating the first version of PCPaint, Doug had a dual-floppy machine with a Computer Innovationscompiler on one disk andsource code on the other. John had the "luxury" of a 10MB hard disk in his XT. Data was exchanged daily via 1200, then 2400 baud modems.
John Bridges and Wolfgram continued to work on PCPaint and GRASP on behalf of Paul Mace Software until 1990. Also in that year, Doug Wolfgram sold his remaining rights to PCPaint (and its animation system,GRASP) to John Bridges.
In 1994, GRASP development stopped and so did development of Pictor Paint. John Bridges terminated his GRASP publishing contract with Paul Mace Software, and went off to createGLPro (the next generation of GRASP) with GMEDIA. Along with GLPro, cameGLPaint, the successor to PCPaint and Pictor Paint.[1]
PCPaint 1.0 saved its graphics in a modifiedBSAVE image format (which was popular at the time) with the file type (extension) of ".PIC". By PCPaint 1.5 this format was extended further to accommodate image compression. With the release of version 2.0 thePICtor PIC image format was developed almost to its present state, with no similarity to the BSAVE format used by earlier versions.
Pictor Paint saved its files in acompressed format with the file extensionPIC, which was the same format used by PCPaint.[5][1][6]
