Developer(s) | ZSoft Corporation |
---|---|
Initial release | 1984 |
Stable release | PC Paintbrush Designer / 1994 |
Operating system | MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows |
Type | Graphics software |
PC Paintbrush was a graphics editing software created by the ZSoft Corporation in 1984 for computers running the MS-DOS operating system.
It was originally developed as a response to the first paintbrush program for the IBM PC, PCPaint, which had been released the prior year by Mouse Systems, the company responsible for bringing the mouse to the IBM PC for the first time.
In 1984, Mouse Systems had released PCPaint to compete with Apple Paint on the Apple II computer and was already positioned to compete with MacPaint on Apple Computer's new Macintosh platform. Unlike MacPaint, PCPaint enabled users to work in color.
When Paintbrush was released the following year, PCPaint had already added 16-color support for the PC's 64-color Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA), and Paintbrush followed with the PC's advantage of EGA support as well. (The EGA supported 64 colors, of which any 16 could be on the screen at a time in normal use.)
Also following the lead of Mouse Systems and PCPaint, one of the first pieces of software on the PC to use a computer mouse pointing device, the earliest versions of Paintbrush were distributed by Microsoft, with a mouse included. Both Microsoft and their competitor, Mouse Systems, bundled their mice with Mouse Systems' PCPaint in 1984. At Christmas 1984, amidst record sales volumes in the home computer market, Microsoft had created a "sidecar" bundle for the PCjr, [1] complete with their mouse, but with their competitor's product, PCPaint. With the release of Paintbrush the following year, Microsoft no longer needed to sell the software of their competitor in the PC mouse hardware market in order to have the same market advantage.
Microsoft's mechanical mice outsold Mouse Systems' optical mice after a few years, but PCPaint outsold Paintbrush until the late 1980s.[ citation needed ]
Unlike most other applications before and since, Paintbrush version numbers were recorded with Roman numerals (ex: PC Paintbrush II, PC Paintbrush IV ).[ citation needed ]
Along with the release of Paintbrush, ZSoft, following in the footsteps of PCPaint's Pictor PIC format, the first popular image format for the PC, created the PCX image format.
The first version of PC Paintbrush released in 1984 only allowed the use of a limited EGA 16-color palette. [2]
PC Paintbrush II was released in 1985. [3]
PC Paintbrush 3.10 was released in 1986. [4]
PC Paintbrush Plus 1.20 was released in 1987. [5]
In 1987 a Microsoft licensed version was released as Microsoft Paintbrush 2.0. [6] [7] It supported saving images in PCX or GX1 file formats. It featured adjustable palettes, different aspect ratios, fifteen fonts and supported printers, amongst other options. [6] A Windows 1 and 2 version, named PC Paintbrush 1.05 for Microsoft Windows was released the same year. [8] A version called Publisher's Paintbrush allowed import of images via TWAIN-based capture devices like handheld and flatbed scanners. [9] [10]
PC Paintbrush III was released in 1988, [11] allowing 256 colors and extended SVGA resolutions were supported through the use of hundreds of custom-tailored graphics drivers. [4] The PCX format grew in capability accordingly. By its final version, Paintbrush was able to open and save PCX, TIFF, and GIF files.
PC Paintbrush IV was released in 1989. [12] [13] PC Paintbrush IV Plus, an updated version released the same year, supporting scanners. [2] [14] Also in 1989, PC Paintbrush Plus 1.12 for Windows was released, eventually becoming the Windows Paint program. [15]
PC Paintbrush Plus for Windows v1.5 was released in 1990. [16]
PC Paintbrush V+ came in 1992. [17] [14]
PC Paintbrush for Windows 1.0 was adapted to the Windows 3.0 graphical environment in 1993. [18] [19] Support for 24-bit color and simple photo retouching tools were also added, as well as the ability to open more than one image at a time. The program also added many simulations of real-world media, such as oil paints, watercolors, and colored pencils, and it had a number of new smudge tools that took advantage of the increased color depth.[ citation needed ]
Both PC Paintbrush and Publisher's Paintbrush were supplemented and later replaced with the more budget-oriented PhotoFinish, first released in 1991, [20] with version 4 released in 1994. [21]
After ZSoft was sold, resold, and then finally absorbed by The Learning Company, an extremely low-priced and simple graphics application was released in 1994 under the title PC Paintbrush Designer. [22]
PCX, standing for PiCture eXchange, is an image file format developed by the now-defunct ZSoft Corporation of Marietta, Georgia, United States. It was the native file format for PC Paintbrush and became one of the first widely accepted DOS imaging standards, although it has since been succeeded by more sophisticated image formats, such as BMP, JPEG, and PNG. PCX files commonly store palette-indexed images ranging from 2 or 4 colors to 16 and 256 colors, although the format has been extended to record true-color (24-bit) images as well.
The Hercules Graphics Card (HGC) is a computer graphics controller formerly made by Hercules Computer Technology, Inc. that combines IBM's text-only MDA display standard with a bitmapped graphics mode, also offering a parallel printer port. This allows the HGC to offer both high-quality text and graphics from a single card.
Microsoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first version of BASIC published by Microsoft as well as the first high-level programming language available for the Altair 8800 microcomputer.
The Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) is an IBM PC graphics adapter and de facto computer display standard from 1984 that superseded the CGA standard introduced with the original IBM PC, and was itself superseded by the VGA standard in 1987. In addition to the original EGA card manufactured by IBM, many compatible third-party cards were manufactured, and EGA graphics modes continued to be supported by VGA and later standards.
Deluxe Paint, often referred to as DPaint, is a bitmap graphics editor created by Dan Silva for Electronic Arts and published for the then-new Amiga 1000 in November 1985. A series of updated versions followed, some of which were ported to other platforms. An MS-DOS release with support for the 256 color VGA standard became popular for creating pixel graphics in video games in the 1990s.
Paint is a simple raster graphics editor that has been included with all versions of Microsoft Windows. The program opens, modifies and saves image files in Windows bitmap (BMP), JPEG, GIF, PNG, and single-page TIFF formats. The program can be in color mode or two-color black-and-white, but there is no grayscale mode. For its simplicity and wide availability, it rapidly became one of the most used Windows applications, introducing many to painting on a computer for the first time.
The Tandy 2000 is a personal computer introduced by Radio Shack in September 1983 based on the 8 MHz Intel 80186 microprocessor running MS-DOS. By comparison, the IBM PC XT used the older 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 processor, and the IBM PC/AT would later use the newer 6 MHz Intel 80286. Due to the 16-bit data bus and more efficient instruction decoding of the 80186, the Tandy 2000 ran significantly faster than other PC compatibles, and slightly faster than the PC AT. The Tandy 2000 was the company's first computer built around an Intel x86 series microprocessor; previous models used the Zilog Z80 and Motorola 6809 CPUs.
The Amstrad PC1512 was Amstrad's mostly IBM PC-compatible computer system, first manufactured in 1986. Next year a slight updated version named PC1640 was introduced. It was also marketed as PC6400, and Sinclair PC500. Schneider branded machines for the German market also exists.
The Remote Imaging Protocol and its associated Remote Imaging Protocol Script language, RIPscrip, is a graphics language that provides a system for sending vector graphics over low-bandwidth links, notably modems. It was originally created by Jeff Reeder, Jim Bergman, and Mark Hayton of TeleGrafix Communications in Huntington Beach, California to enhance bulletin board systems and other applications.
Microsoft PhotoDraw was a vector graphics and raster image editing software developed by Microsoft. It was released in 1999 as part of the Microsoft Office 2000 family of products and was specifically designed for creating and editing graphics, illustrations, and photo compositions.
A number of vector graphics editors exist for various platforms. Potential users of these editors will make a comparison of vector graphics editors based on factors such as the availability for the user's platform, the software license, the feature set, the merits of the user interface (UI) and the focus of the program. Some programs are more suitable for artistic work while others are better for technical drawings. Another important factor is the application's support of various vector and bitmap image formats for import and export.
The Amiga computer can be used to emulate several other computer platforms, including legacy platforms such as the Commodore 64, and its contemporary rivals such as the IBM PC and the Macintosh.
NeoPaint is a raster graphics editor for Windows and MS-DOS. It supports several file formats including JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, and TIFF. The developer, NeoSoft, advertises NeoPaint as "being simple enough for use by children while remaining powerful enough for the purposes of advanced image editing".
PCPaint was one of the first IBM PC-based mouse-driven GUI paint programs, released in 1984. It followed after Microsoft Doodle, released in 1983 with the Microsoft Mouse version 1 drivers for DOS, and around the same time as Digital Research’s Draw program. It was developed by John Bridges and Doug Wolfgram. It was later developed into Pictor Paint.
GRaphic Animation System for Professionals (GRASP) was the first multimedia animation program for the IBM PC family of computers. It was also at one time the most widely used animation format.
John Bridges is the co-author of the computer program PCPaint and primary developer of the program GRASP for Microtex Industries with Doug Wolfgram. He is also the sole author of GLPro and AfterGRASP. His article entitled "Differential Image Compression" was published in the February 1991 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal.
BSAVE and BLOAD are commands in many varieties of the BASIC programming language. BSAVE copies RAM to a binary file, and BLOAD copies the contents of the file to RAM. The term "BSAVE image" could mean any of various raw image formats of video display controllers, or more generally any file containing the raw contents of a section of memory.
Windows 1.0 is the first major release of Microsoft Windows, a family of graphical operating systems for personal computers developed by Microsoft. It was first released to manufacturing in the United States on November 20, 1985, while the European version was released as Windows 1.02 in May 1986.
GrafX2 is a bitmap graphics editor inspired by the Amiga programs Deluxe Paint and Brilliance. It is free software and distributed under the GPL-2.0-only license.
The Hercules InColor Card (GB222) is an IBM PC compatible 8-bit ISA graphics controller card released in April 1987 by Hercules Computer Technology, Inc. It supported a fixed hardware palette of 64 colours, with the ability to display 720 × 350 with 16 colours on an EGA monitor and software redefinable fonts.