Pictor Paint

PCPaint

A demonstration of PCPaint
Original author(s)	John Bridges Doug Wolfgram
Developer(s)	Microtex Industries for Mouse Systems
Initial release	1980s
Stable release	PCPaint 3.1 / 1989; 28 years ago (1989)
Operating system	MS-DOS
Type	Graphics software

PCPaint was the first IBM PC-based mouse-driven GUI paint program. It was developed by John Bridges and Doug Wolfgram. It was later developed into Pictor Paint.

The hardware manufacturer Mouse Systems bundled PCPaint with millions of computer mice that they sold, making PCPaint also the best-selling MS-DOS-based paint program of the late 1980s.

During the dawn of the IBM-PC age in 1981, Doug Wolfgram purchased a Microsoft Mouse and decided to write a drawing program for it. The interface was primitive but the program functioned well. In February 1983, Wolfgram traveled to SoftCon in New Orleans where he demonstrated the program to Mouse Systems. Mouse Systems was developing an optical mouse and they wanted to bundle a painting program so they agreed to bundle in Mouse Draw. The original program was written entirely in Assembly language with primitive graphics routines developed by Wolfgram.

In 1982 John Bridges worked for an educational software company, Classroom Consortia Media, Inc., developing and writing Apple and IBM graphics libraries 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 the BBS, Wolfram in California and Bridges in New York.

Apple was by this time hard at work on their new computer, MacIntosh, and Mouse Systems wanted the new paint program to capture the look and feel of MacPaint. Wolfgram contacted Bridges and the two agreed to develop the commercial version of PCPaint, as it was to be called by Mouse Systems. John Bridges and Doug Wolfgram started reworking Mouse Draw into what became the world's first commercial GUI painting program for the PC. The program was completely re-written using Bridge's graphics library and the top level elements were written in C 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.

In early 1987, Mouse Systems decided that Paint Programs weren'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 (called GRASP) and Paul Mace Software bought publishing rights to the animation system and PCPaint, which was to be renamed Pictor. Bridges again got involved and took over programming responsibilities for GRASP as well as PCPaint while Wolfgram focused on more of the business details.