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Symbolics Graphics Division
Established Date: Jan. 1, 1981
- All
- co-founder
- pioneer
- production
- animator
- software engineer
- artist
- animation
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Symbolics, Inc. was formed in 1980, headed by Russell Noftsker and his right-hand man and CTO Jack Holloway (both from Triple-I). Hardware architecture was based on work by researchers at the M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Lisp Machine project in 1974 (thanks to the close proximity of the Symbolics Cambridge Research Center).
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Symbolics produced the first workstation that could genlock, the first to have?real-time video I/O, the first to support digital video I/O, and the first to do HDTV.
firsts in hardware -
The Symbolics Graphics Division (SGB) was created by former members of Triple-I when that company ceased computer graphics production work in about 1981. Founded initially by Tom McMahon (General Manager from Triple-I), he soon was joined by Craig Reynolds, Dave Dyer, Larry Malone, Jeremy Schwartz, Larry Stein (hardware), and Bob Coyne (software). Matt Elson, Jay Sloat, and Ken Brain were artists, TDs, and trainers. Tom first worked out of the small Woodland Hills office, commuting often to the Massachusetts research …
Symbolics Graphics Division -
As many as 50 people worked on this memorable project and shared responsibility. Some key people included Phillipe Bergeron (animation), Joseph Goldstone, Kevin Hunter, Larry Malone, Craig Reynolds (flocking and schooling code), Jim Ryan, and Michael Wahrman (Producer). Richard "Dr." Baily was hired by Michael Wahrman to model the two main characters based on sketches. He also composed and recorded the original soundtrack, which later was replaced by another one. It was a big hit at the 1985 SIGGRAPH in …
Stanley and Stella - Breaking the Ice -
SGD's first general manager was Howard Cannon from the Cambridge office, followed by Sheila Madsen, John Kulp, and then Tom McMahon. Tom went on to design most of the hardware and video systems for the company including all the framegrabbing, genlock, and high-definition capabilities that SGD pioneered with Sony and others.
more early employees -
Around 1990, Symbolics started to fail and began to lay off employees. Even though SGD had a successful ongoing business with a good customer base, it still relied on its parent company for workstation and operating system technology as well as for other corporate infrastructure such as HR, finance, customer service, and so on. Symbolics was sold to Nichimen in 1992, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1995 and was bought back by its original founder Russell Noftsker.
The End -
"Eventually, SGD was the target of a takeover and transition to Japanese management. SGD's Japanese distributor (Nichimen) had a thriving business based on the SGD product line of videographics hardware and the animation and rendering software. They couldn't afford to see us get blown away lest they be left without a source of supply. So they started buying up an insurance policy. They made Symbolics some offers it couldn't refuse given its poor financial health. In a sequence of financial …
inside story - by Tom McMahon -
The Symbolics LM-2 was introduced in 1981, the 3600 in 1982, the 3640 and 3670 in 1984, and the 3675 and 3645 in 1985. At its peak in 1985, Symbolics had more than 650 employees and 35 sales offices in North America, Europe, Japan, and the Middle East. Symbolics had more than 1,500 systems installed around the world. Color graphics system hardware included 8-bit or 24-bit high-resolution framebuffers, 32-bit broadcast resolution framebuffers, CAD buffers, digitizing frame grabbers, genlock options (for …
LM-2 -
In-house tools included S-Geometry for modeling and S-Dynamics for animation.?S-Paint was a LISP-based 32-bit paint system designed by Craig Reynolds, Tom McMahon, Bob Coyne, and?Eric Weaver. After being sold to Nichimen in 1992 it is still available ( as of 2012 ) as Mirai from Izware.
in-house tools -
Michael Wahrman -
Craig Reynolds -
Joseph Goldstone
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Philippe Bergeron
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Tom McMahon -
Richard ( Doc ) Baily
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Stanley and Stella in Breaking the Ice -
Whitney Demos Productions
firsts in hardware
Symbolics produced the first workstation that could genlock, the first to have?real-time video I/O, the first to support digital video I/O, and the first to do HDTV.
Symbolics Graphics Division
The Symbolics Graphics Division (SGB) was created by former members of Triple-I when that company ceased computer graphics production work in about 1981. Founded initially by Tom McMahon (General Manager from Triple-I), he soon was joined by Craig Reynolds, Dave Dyer, Larry Malone, Jeremy Schwartz, Larry Stein (hardware), and Bob Coyne (software). Matt Elson, Jay Sloat, and Ken Brain were artists, TDs, and trainers. Tom first worked out of the small Woodland Hills office, commuting often to the Massachusetts research center. Chatsworth was home for a short while before finally relocating to Westwood, California, in 1983.
Stanley and Stella - Breaking the Ice
As many as 50 people worked on this memorable project and shared responsibility. Some key people included Phillipe Bergeron (animation), Joseph Goldstone, Kevin Hunter, Larry Malone, Craig Reynolds (flocking and schooling code), Jim Ryan, and Michael Wahrman (Producer). Richard "Dr." Baily was hired by Michael Wahrman to model the two main characters based on sketches. He also composed and recorded the original soundtrack, which later was replaced by another one. It was a big hit at the 1985 SIGGRAPH in particular.
more early employees
SGD's first general manager was Howard Cannon from the Cambridge office, followed by Sheila Madsen, John Kulp, and then Tom McMahon. Tom went on to design most of the hardware and video systems for the company including all the framegrabbing, genlock, and high-definition capabilities that SGD pioneered with Sony and others.
The End
Around 1990, Symbolics started to fail and began to lay off employees. Even though SGD had a successful ongoing business with a good customer base, it still relied on its parent company for workstation and operating system technology as well as for other corporate infrastructure such as HR, finance, customer service, and so on. Symbolics was sold to Nichimen in 1992, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1995 and was bought back by its original founder Russell Noftsker.
inside story - by Tom McMahon
"Eventually, SGD was the target of a takeover and transition to Japanese management. SGD's Japanese distributor (Nichimen) had a thriving business based on the SGD product line of videographics hardware and the animation and rendering software. They couldn't afford to see us get blown away lest they be left without a source of supply. So they started buying up an insurance policy. They made Symbolics some offers it couldn't refuse given its poor financial health. In a sequence of financial transactions, Nichimen bought rights to certain hardware technologies. They also started picking up the payroll for SGD employees in exchange for certain worldwide distribution rights. In the end, we had the people but Nichimen ended up owning most of our hard-earned technology. We already had begun looking at how to port these tools off of Symbolics workstation platforms. SGI became the porting target. By 1991, we were well into the rewrite and port, but Symbolics needed to pull the plug on us. I worked out a pretty amazing salvage deal with our old friends at Triple-I. I negotiated a contract where I could take all of SGD's key employees back to the employ of Triple-I but under a funding arrangement with Nichimen. Nichimen got their security blanket, and the employees kept their jobs. (A blanket layoff and the entire extermination of SGD were the alternatives at the time.) At Triple-I, we proceeded to port all the SGD products to SGI machines, but things started going sour there, too. We spun out of Triple-I and started yet another new company (with Nichimen seed funding) called Del Rey Graphics. Del Ray was co-founded by Al Fenaughty, President and CEO of Triple-I, along with Jack Holloway, one of the Foonly designers at Triple-I. But that didn't work due to a hostile takeover by Nichimen. My partners and I ended up selling the whole thing to Nichimen and what is left of this very long thread is now called Nichimen Graphics."
LM-2
The Symbolics LM-2 was introduced in 1981, the 3600 in 1982, the 3640 and 3670 in 1984, and the 3675 and 3645 in 1985. At its peak in 1985, Symbolics had more than 650 employees and 35 sales offices in North America, Europe, Japan, and the Middle East. Symbolics had more than 1,500 systems installed around the world. Color graphics system hardware included 8-bit or 24-bit high-resolution framebuffers, 32-bit broadcast resolution framebuffers, CAD buffers, digitizing frame grabbers, genlock options (for synchronization to video), color monitors (standard, premium, NTSC-resolution, and CAD buffer monitors), graphics tablets, and NTSC encoders and decoders.
in-house tools
In-house tools included S-Geometry for modeling and S-Dynamics for animation.?S-Paint was a LISP-based 32-bit paint system designed by Craig Reynolds, Tom McMahon, Bob Coyne, and?Eric Weaver. After being sold to Nichimen in 1992 it is still available ( as of 2012 ) as Mirai from Izware.
Symbolics, Inc. was formed in 1980, headed by Russell Noftsker and his right-hand man and CTO Jack Holloway (both from Triple-I). Hardware architecture was based on work by researchers at the M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Lisp Machine project in 1974 (thanks to the close proximity of the Symbolics Cambridge Research Center).