 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(February 2024) |
SAPIEN Technologies is a privately held software company based in Napa, California. Founded in 1986, the company has produced a number of commercial software products under contract from various publishers, as well as its own commercial software products.
SAPIEN Technologies started as Group Telein, founded by Paul Lamoreux, David Gaertner, and Ferdinand G. Rios. Lamoreux and Gaertner were Computer Science undergraduates at University of California Berkeley; Rios has a Ph.D. in Forensic Science. Group Telein was a small computer consulting firm with the stated goal of creating their own software products. However, to begin realizing income more quickly, the three began offering simple computer consulting services, including assisting individuals with personal computer setup, office computer setup, and so forth. The personal computer was only about 6 years old at the time, and computers were often significantly more complex and difficult to set up and maintain than today.
Lamoreux's father was a bio-mechanical engineer, and had developed a device to measure knee laxity (how loosely the tibia was attached to the knee joint). The device was to be the first of its kind to feed diagnostic data directly to a computer in real-time, and Lamoreux was offered the opportunity to write the companion software. Group Telein wrote the software in Turbo Pascal, eventually moving their operations from their individual residences to an office in downtown Berkeley, California. The knee device was successful, and led to other projects. By 1989, the company had seven employees, but only a single major client.
The bio-mechanical company decided to slow down software development, resulting in an almost total loss of revenue for Group Telein. After Group Telein laid off all of the company's employees, Gaertner, who had just graduated from UC Berkeley, accepted a position with IBM. Rios and Lamoreux decided to incorporate under a new name, SAPIEN Technologies, in 1990.
Along with two former employees, Tracy Elmore and Alex Zeltser, SAPIEN decided to work on their first in-house software product, a language-independent programming editor called ECOS, designed for Microsoft Windows v2.0. The product received a lukewarm reception at the company's first tradeshow; programmers at the time were accustomed to writing programs for Microsoft Windows, but did so in a DOS-based development environment. Without any income coming from the product, Elmore and Zeltser decided to seek other employment. Elmore eventually accepted a position with Berkeley Systems, which at the time was a Macintosh software development company seeking to begin Windows development.
Rios and Lamoreux continued to work on small projects to generate revenue; Elmore recommended SAPIEN as a contractor with Windows development experience to help Berkeley Systems develop modules for their popular After Dark screen saver product. SAPIEN developed More After Dark and After Dark: Star Trek Edition for Berkeley Systems. SAPIEN continued to increase both their revenue and their staff through 1992, when the company entered into an agreement with PixelLite to create a vector-based print publishing application similar to the popular PrintShop software. PixelLite was owned by the original creators of Print Shop, which had by then been sold to Broderbund Software. Elmore was hired back from Berkeley Systems to help with the new product, which was originally named InstantArtist (InstantArtist was originally published by Autodesk Corporation, then by Maxis Software under the name PrintArtist; Maxis was purchased by Sierra, which still publishes PrintArtist).
From 1992 to 1997, SAPIEN developed software for other companies, including Individual Software, Viacom Entertainment, Illumina Productions, and others; the company entered into a five-year agreement with Rand McNally to design and develop their TripMaker software. Zeltser came back to SAPIEN to head development on TripMaker, eventually producing not only that product but also StreetFinder and New Millennium World Atlas for Rand McNally. Alex Riedel joined the staff in 1997 to work on the World Atlas product. As the five-year agreement with Rand McNally neared its end, however, Lamoreux and Rios decided to discontinue all development contracts, downsize the staff, and begin developing SAPIEN's own products.
While still living in Germany, Riedel had published a shareware Windows-based programming editor called ARIS Edit. SAPIEN came to an agreement to use the source code of ARIS Edit to produce SAPIEN's own programming editor. Because Windows-based editors were plentiful in the market, SAPIEN focused on a new language being produced by Microsoft: Visual Basic Scripting Edition, or VBScript. SAPIEN's editor was named PrimalScript 1.0, and it focused primarily on providing an integrated development environment for VBScript.
In 2004, SAPIEN acquired ScriptingAnswers.com and began expanding from a single-product software company to a larger, more all-inclusive product portfolio focused on scripting and software development.
SAPIEN's products fall into four basic categories:
Software Includes the PrimalScript script development environment [1] and the PrimalScope Windows script debugger. [2]
Publishing The company publishes scripting-related books under the SAPIEN Press brand name. [3]
Community The company supports free community Web sites related to scripting, including ScriptingAnswers.com [4] and SearchScripting.com. [5]
Training The company's training products, including instructor-led training and ScriptingAnswers.com-branded self-based training, are consolidated into a single training Web site. [6]
VBScript is a deprecated Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It allows Microsoft Windows system administrators to generate powerful tools for managing computers without error handling and with subroutines and other advanced programming constructs. It can give the user complete control over many aspects of their computing environment.
Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using dedicated software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online content. Desktop publishing software can generate page layouts and produce text and image content comparable to the simpler forms of traditional typography and printing. This technology allows individuals, businesses, and other organizations to self-publish a wide variety of content, from menus to magazines to books, without the expense of commercial printing.
AppleScript is a scripting language created by Apple Inc. that facilitates automated control over scriptable Mac applications. First introduced in System 7, it is currently included in all versions of macOS as part of a package of system automation tools. The term "AppleScript" may refer to the language itself, to an individual script written in the language, or, informally, to the macOS Open Scripting Architecture that underlies the language.
Microsoft Agent was a technology developed by Microsoft which employed animated characters, text-to-speech engines, and speech recognition software to enhance interaction with computer users. Thus it was an example of an embodied agent. It came pre-installed as part of Windows 2000 through Windows Vista. It was not included with Windows 7 but can be downloaded from Microsoft. It was completely discontinued in Windows 8. Microsoft Agent functionality was exposed as an ActiveX control that can be used by web pages.
The Microsoft Windows Script Host (WSH) is an automation technology for Microsoft Windows operating systems that provides scripting abilities comparable to batch files, but with a wider range of supported features. This tool was first provided on Windows 95 after Build 950a on the installation discs as an optional installation configurable and installable by means of the Control Panel, and then a standard component of Windows 98 and subsequent and Windows NT 4.0 Build 1381 and by means of Service Pack 4. The WSH is also a means of automation for Internet Explorer via the installed WSH engines from IE Version 3.0 onwards; at this time VBScript became means of automation for Microsoft Outlook 97. The WSH is also an optional install provided with a VBScript and JScript engine for Windows CE 3.0 and following and some third-party engines including Rexx and other forms of Basic are also available.
Adobe Dreamweaver is a proprietary web development tool from Adobe Inc. It was created by Macromedia in 1997 and developed by them until Macromedia was acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005.
TrueSpace was a commercial 3D computer graphics and animation software developed by Caligari Corporation, bought-out by Microsoft. As of May 2009, it was officially discontinued, but with some 'unofficial support' up to February 2010.
HomeSite was an HTML editor originally developed by Nick Bradbury. Unlike WYSIWYG HTML editors such as FrontPage and Dreamweaver, HomeSite was designed for direct editing, or "hand coding", of HTML and other website languages.
Xara is an international software company founded in 1981, with an HQ in Berlin and development office in Hemel Hempstead, UK. It has developed software for a variety of computer platforms, in chronological order: the Acorn Atom, BBC Micro, Z88, Atari ST, Acorn Archimedes, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and more recently web browser-based services.
OrCAD Systems Corporation was a software company that made OrCAD, a proprietary software tool suite used primarily for electronic design automation (EDA). The software is used mainly by electronic design engineers and electronic technicians to create electronic schematics, and perform mixed-signal simulation and electronic prints for manufacturing printed circuit boards (PCBs). OrCAD was taken over by Cadence Design Systems in 1999 and was integrated with Cadence Allegro in 2005.
Take Command Console (TCC), formerly known as 4DOS for Windows NT (4NT), is a command-line interpreter by JP Software, designed as a substitute for the default command interpreter in Microsoft Windows, CMD.EXE.
Rhinoceros is a commercial 3D computer graphics and computer-aided design (CAD) application software that was developed by TLM, Inc, dba Robert McNeel & Associates, an American, privately held, and employee-owned company that was founded in 1978. Rhinoceros geometry is based on the NURBS mathematical model, which focuses on producing mathematically precise representation of curves and freeform surfaces in computer graphics.
Sierra Print Artist is a computer program from Sierra Home. The software allows the user to make cards, calendars, stationery and other assorted crafts and then print them with their printer. The current version is 25.
An HTML Application (HTA) is a Microsoft Windows program whose source code consists of HTML, Dynamic HTML, and one or more scripting languages supported by Internet Explorer, such as VBScript or JScript. The HTML is used to generate the user interface, and the scripting language is used for the program logic. An HTA executes without the constraints of the internet browser security model; in fact, it executes as a "fully trusted" application.
OpenText UFT One, formerly known as Micro Focus Unified Functional Testing and QuickTest Professional (QTP), is software that provides functional and regression test automation for software applications and environments.
NS Basic is a family of development tools developed and commercially marketed by NSB Corporation in Toronto, Ontario, Canada for iOS, Android, Microsoft Windows, MacOS, Linux, BlackBerry OS, WebOS, Newton OS, Palm OS, Windows CE and Windows Mobile.
A scripting language or script language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the facilities of an existing system. Scripting languages are usually interpreted at runtime rather than compiled.
FastTrack Automation Studio, often referred to as just FastTrack, is a scripting language for Windows IT System Administrators. The product’s goal is to handle any kind of scripting that might be required to automate processes with Microsoft Windows networks.
SAPIEN maintains a number of different Web sites for its various products and services, rather than consolidating them all into a single Web site: