ColorGraphics Weather Systems
ColorGraphics Weather Systems is a pioneering computer graphics company that produces a series of systems for displaying weather forecast data used by television stations. Originally based on custom hardware, today their products are software-based systems running on commodity systems.
Terry Kelly graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1971 with a degree in meteorology and almost immediately took a job with the local Channel 27 calculating weather predictions. Over the next two years he introduced a number of new techniques to the industry - using magnets to represent high and low points, color markers on a whiteboard for graphics, and later hand-photographing satellite cloud imagry with a Bolex camera to produce the first cloud-movement animations.[1][2]
Kelly and several of his colleges also produced weather forecasting software. In 1974 he was promoted to chief meteorologist at Channel 27,[2] and at the same time started Weather Central to sell and operate their software for smaller organizations like ski resorts and local hiway departments.[1]
ColorGraphics was formed in 1979 as a partnership between Kelly and Richard Daly. Kelly and Daly had both worked in the University of Wisconsin's Space Science and Engineering department, developers of the PDP-11-based "McIdas" (Man-Computer Interactive Data Access System) weather display system. McIdas used downloaded satellite cloud cover images and superimposed them on locally generated maps. Designed for the National Weather Service, McIdas was a high-end system well beyond the budgets of a television station.[3]
Kelly's idea was to adapt the McIdas concept for lower cost home computer systems that were appearing in the late 1970s. Their first system, "LiveLine", was based on the Apple II. Its graphics system could not be genlocked, so a TV camera had to be pointed at the screen to send the video into the production systems. This initial system was soon replaced by a similar one running on Cromemco computers using a modified version of their Dazzler color-graphics card.[4] In spite of its simplicity and low resolution, the fast production and "high tech" look caught on, and soon the system was almost universal, replacing bluescreen systems on cardboard maps that had previously been used.[5] The company notes that 70% of the top 50 TV markets were using the system by 1982.[6]
In 1982 the company was purchased by Dynatech, an expanding electronics company. Dynatech later purchased Cromemco and rolled the two companies together, before divesting themselves of all their media properties in the early 1990s. Kelly and Daly purchased the rights back from Dynatech in 1994, operating under the Weather Central name. In 1995 they introduced the new "GENESIS" platform on Silicon Graphics computers, which later moved onto Hewlett-Packard workstations.[6]
References
Notes
- ^ a b Nelson, pg. 306
- ^ a b Robert Chappell, "The Liberal Media", Madison Magazine, March 2005
- ^ Nelson, pg. 302
- ^ Robert Kuhmann, "Cromemco S-100 computer ~ a Silicon Valley memoir (1977-1997)", January 2008
- ^ Nelson, pg. 303
- ^ a b "Weather Central History"
Bibliography
- Mike Nelson, "Colorado Weather Almanac", Big Earth Publishing, 2007, ISBN 1555664016