User:Jimlzim/sandbox

Full Color Computing, Inc. was founded by three employees of Ashton-Tate’s graphics division (formerly Decision Resources, Inc.) located in Westport Connecticut. The three employees were Jim Zimmermann, Louis J. Bottali, and Carl Dzubay. Jim was the Director of Research and Development for Graphics Products at Ashton-Tate and Louis and Carl were part of the R&D team. One day in 1987, Louis and Carl approached Jim with an idea for a color image processing product. Jim loved the idea and the seeds of Full Color Computing, Inc. were planted.

Over the next year, Louis and Carl worked on the code for the product while Jim handled the other aspects of the business. Much of the work was done in the basement of Lou’s home in Ridgefield, CT. Jim, Louis, and Carl incorporated Full Color Computing, Inc. on January 20, 1988.

The team decided to base their product on commercially available high-end UNIX-based computer systems from vendors such as Silicon Graphics, Apollo, Sun, and other Unix-based platforms that offered powerful graphic processors. Since the team couldn’t afford to purchase an expensive platform, they started “borrowing” time on Silicon Graphics computers in the off hours. This necessitated many long drives from Connecticut to the Silicon Graphics sales office in Waltham Massachusetts. The team would arrive as the offices were closing, load up the code, and work on testing and development using the demonstration computers in the Silicon Graphics office. The team would work until late at night and then drive back to Connecticut.

Full Color Computing’s first product was Full Color Publisher, a high-end photo retouch and editing program designed to run on standard UNIX-based computers with graphics processors. Full Color Publisher was the first color publishing product available for UNIX-based workstations.

During the early days of the availability of the product, the team secured a call with Industrial Light and Magic to demonstrate the capabilities of the product. At that time, ILM was heavily invested in Silicon Graphics hardware. The team was given a coveted tour of the complex and was able to view a working session for the Terminator movie. It was also interesting to note that when the team was leaving the facility, the founders of Photoshop were waiting in the lobby for their meeting.

Sales were slow and the team realized that it needed an influx of capital and sales help. The company sold a percentage of the company to Krismark Corporation, owned by Ronald Halverson. Krismark became the sales arm of Full Color Computing and was responsible for creating global reseller arrangements. The company moved into office space in Ridgefield Connecticut and was able to obtain access to Silicon Graphics computers and an Iris large format color printer. In addition to software sales, the company began offering a color printing service bureau for the 3D design community. This ended up being a significant source of revenue. Design firms would send high resolution images on tapes and the team would print the files on the Iris printer and ship them to back. During this time Krismark hired John Carapella, who was a Silicon Graphics sales representative, to head up sales. Krismark also hired two designers who worked on demos, samples, product testing, etc.

In 1989, the company began work on its next product – Full Color Prepress. This was a complete suite of color publishing tools that incorporated Publisher along with color prepress/separation features. This product was designed to compete with expensive dedicated color publishing solutions like Scitex.

In the summer of 1990, Alias Research, leading 3D software company, approached Full Color Computing, Inc. about possibly acquiring the company. The sale was completed on October 26, 1990, for $1 million in cash and 200,000 shares of Alias stock. Soon after the sale, the company relocated to the old Fabric Fire Hose building in Newtown, Connecticut. The company fitted out space on the second floor of the historic building while preserving the character of the interior. A state-of-the-art demonstration room was created with a large Silicon Graphics computer, Iris printer, a viewing booth, and other pre-press equipment. The company exhibited its products at the leading graphics trade shows at the time including Siggraph.

In 1992, Jim left Alias Research, and Louis and Carl continued working for the company.

For more information on the subsequent history of Alias Research, please visit their Wikipedia page.