Graphics Animation System for Professionals
GRASP - GRaphical System for Presentation
GRASP was the first multimedia animation program for the IBM PC "Family of Computers".
GRASP 1.0
John Bridges and Doug Wolfgram were the co-authors of GRASP 1.0, which was released in 1985 and distributed as ShareWare directly by Doug's company, Microtex Industries. Subsequent versions followed. Version 1.10c was released in September 1986.
The first version of GRASP code was called FlashGun, and was later known as the GRaphical System for Presentation when it first reached a public audience. Then finally, it became the GRaphics Animation System for Professionals.
The name GRASP was, for the lack of a better word, "ripped off" from an early IBM language called GRASS. GRASS stood for something entirely different (not graphics), but Doug liked the "clever play on words" so he borrowed the idea.
GRASP 2.0
In 1987, GRASP 2.0, was released and no longer distributed as ShareWare. It became a commercial product published in the USA by Paul Mace Software, with John Bridges taking over the product.
With the development of GRASP, Doug Wolfgram had been able to form a new company called GRAFX Group, Inc. with the explicit purpose of developing interactive marketing software. Until 1987, The GRAFX Group had been a divison of Microtex Industries.
GRASP 3.0
In 1988, GRASP 3.0 was released, followed in October 1988 by GRASP 3.5, bundled with Pictor (an improved PCPaint minus publishing features).
GRASP 4.0
In February 1991 GRASP 4.0 was released, with the ability to create "self-executing" demos (bind to make EXE added), AutoDesk FLI/FLC support, PC Speaker Digitized Sound, and a robust programming environment
Multi-Media GRASP 1.0
In June 1993, Multi-Media GRASP 1.0 was released with TrueColor support.
Authorship and Ownership
Early in 1990 Doug Wolfgram sold his remaining rights to GRASP (and PCPaint) to John Bridges.
In 1994, GRASP development stopped. John Bridges terminated his GRASP publishing contract with Paul Mace Software, and went off to create GLPRO (the next generation of GRASP) with Jason Gibbs at GMEDIA.
Although some web pages list Paul Mace Software as "buying" GRASP or "owning" GRASP, that is not correct.
History of GRASP
FlashGun - In The Beginning
1983
In mid-1983 Doug Wolfgram had a friend at IBM (called "BlackBeard" or "BlueBeard", "something like that?") who was working "on the side" with Doug developing a script driven slideshow program called "FlashGun".
"BlueBeard" had written a bunch of assembly language graphics image fade routines for the CGA (Color Graphics Adapter) that was state of the art at the time. Doug combined "BlueBeard's" fade routines with scripted image loading routines from PCPaint written by John Bridges.
1984
At the SoftCon trade show in New Orleans early in 1984, when Doug Wolfgram demonstrated MouseDraw (PCPaint's prototype) he also demonstrated FlashGun. Mouse Systems wanted PCPaint but did not want FlashGun.
Doug decided to take the development of FlashGun forward himself, and eventually got into business of producing graphics demos as well as programming the presentation software needed for the demos.
By late 1984 Doug Wolfgram had for the most part left future development of PCPaint to John Bridges, and funded the development of GRASP 1.0 (formerly called FlashGun) based on John Bridges’ graphics routines,
1985
He created a division of his company, Microtex Industries, called The GRAFX Group.
Doug hired at least two people he knew from his BBS. John Bridges helped one of them, and Doug take the source for PCPaint, chop out the painting, and make it a simple font editor for Doug's slideshow program.
Doug had another person working for him take John Bridge's graphics library, and make a simple script playback that had a command for each graphics library function. It also used the assembly language fades from FlashGun for a "FADE" command.
It stored all the files in a ZIB archive, renaming John Bridges' program ZIB to GLIB and the archives it produced were now called GL files.
Unfortunately those image fade routines were mode specific (CGA), and wouldn't work in new modes, and they were very hard to enhance. Doug asked John Bridges to rewrite those routines, and John ended up rewriting all the script parts as well.
There wasn't any money involved for John because GRASP was going to be distributed as shareware despite the fact that GRASP was also used by Doug's GRAFX Group to generate revenue from producing graphics demos.
John Bridges didn't have a lot to do with the first version of GRASP beyond code he had already written. His first direct involvement was rewriting the fade routines to work on picture buffers, and it grew from there, with John evetually taking over GRASP entirely, along with PCPaint.
1987
By the end of 1987, the GRAFX group had become GRAFX Group, Inc., a separate entity from Microtex Industries, and had dropped out of the programming business, choosing not to pursue less profitable work that was underway such as Unix based programming any further.
Doug found there was "real money" to be made in the demo business. He hired graphic artists, and used GRASP to produce slick demos for big technology companies such as Toshiba and others.
References
Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats, 2nd Edition by Murray, James D. , Van Ryper, William ISBN: 1-56592-161-5 http://www.fileformat.info/resource/book/1565921615/index.htm
Pictor PC Paint File Format Summary http://www.fileformat.info/format/pictor/
GRASP File Format Summary http://www.fileformat.info/format/grasp/
GLPRO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLPro
PCPAINT/Pictor Page Format Description Format by John Bridges. Document by Microtex Industries, Inc. Revision Date: 2/9/88 http://netghost.narod.ru/gff/vendspec/pictor/pictor.txt
The Graphics File Formats Page GL - Another animation format Dr. Martin Reddy Technical Lead, R & D, Pixar Animation Studios http://www.martinreddy.net/gfx/2d/GL.txt
The formats of GRASP animation files By George Phillips http://www.programmersheaven.com/download/2157/Zipfilelist.aspx
The History of GLPRO by Jason Gibbs (G-media/IMS) GLPro Mailing List Archive http://www.concept-usa.us/glpro/glprolist/glprolist.asp?as_q=History+of+GLPRO&R2=V2&R1=V2&num=20&btnSub=Submit+Query
originally at http://www.gmedia.com/glpro/press/history.html
Pmace is still around http://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=aftergrasp@googlegroups.com&q=pmace
Doug and Melody Wolfgram by Cynthia Gregory Wilson http://wwwiz.com/issue01/wiz_c01.html
Douglas Wolfgram - Learning.net Management Team Founder/Chief Technology Officer http://www.car.learningcenter.com/about/bios.html
Doug Wolfgram - PresenterNet Founders http://www.presenternet.com/html/team.php
Doug Wolfgram - Ecademy Profile http://www.ecademy.com/account.php?id=48263