Mark Pelczarski wrote and published some of the earliest digital multimedia computer software. In 1979 while teaching computer science at

Northern Illinois University Northern Illinois University (NIU) is a public research university in DeKalb, Illinois, United States. It was founded as "Northern Illinois State Normal School" in 1895 by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld, initially to provide the state with c ...

, he self-published Magic Paintbrush, which was one of the first digital paint programs for the

Apple II Apple II ("apple Roman numerals, two", stylized as Apple ][) is a series of microcomputers manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1977 to 1993. The Apple II (original), original Apple II model, which gave the series its name, was designed ...

, the first consumer computer that had color graphics capabilities. Pelczarski was hired as an editor at SoftSide magazine in 1980, but then left to start Penguin Software in 1981 to publish his optimistically-titled Complete Graphics System, which included digital imaging and 3D wireframe rendering. In the next year he co-wrote and published Special Effects and Graphics Magician with

David Lubar David Lubar (born March 16, 1954) is an author of numerous books for teens. He is also a video game programmer, who programmed ''Super Breakout'' for the Game Boy and ''Frogger'' for both the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy. He ...

, who was then writing for

Creative Computing ''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format t ...

magazine.

Special Effects Special effects (often abbreviated as F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the fictional events in a story or virtual world. ...

produced digital effects with images and also contained one of the first uses of digital paintbrushes. Graphics Magician featured one of the first uses of vector graphics for image compression, as well as animation routines that made it easy for programmers to add animation to their software. Graphics Magician was licensed by most of the software publishers in the early 1980s for adding graphics and animation to their games and educational software, won numerous awards, and was one of the best selling programs of the time. It was the forerunner of software like

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...

for compressed images and animation. Pelczarski wrote a monthly column for ''

Softalk ''Softalk'' () was an American magazine of the early 1980s that focused on the Apple II computer. Published from September 1980 through August 1984, it featured articles about hardware and software associated with the Apple II platform and the p ...

'' magazine about computer graphics programming, and those columns were later collected into a book, ''Graphically Speaking''. In 1986 Pelczarski wrote and published one of the first digital music performance programs, MIDI Onstage, which allowed control of

MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...

devices to accompany live performances. Soon after, he built the digital portion of recording studios for

Jimmy Buffett James William Buffett (December 25, 1946 – September 1, 2023) was an American singer-songwriter, author, and businessman. He was known for his tropical rock sound and persona, which often portrayed a lifestyle described as "island escapis ...

and

Dan Fogelberg Daniel Grayling Fogelberg (August 13, 1951 – December 16, 2007) was an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist widely known for his 1970s and 1980s soft rock hits, including " Longer" (1979), " Same Old Lang Syne" (1981), and " ...

. Pelczarski returned to college teaching and taught one of the first online courses in 1996. As part of the development for the course he wrote ''Dialogue'', one of the first web forum applications, which was made available free to dozens of other universities around the world as they entered into online education.

References

General References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pelczarski, Mark Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American computer programmers Northern Illinois University faculty