WEBVTT - The Adobe Story, Part One 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:05.400 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:13.120 Stuff looks dot com. Well look at that. You're back 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:15.560 again for another episode of tech Stuff. My name is 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:17.560 Chris Poulette and I am an editor at how Stuff 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:20.119 works dot com. Sitting across from me, as is typical, 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:25.119 is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. He there, so today I 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:27.760 thought we would chat a bit. Uh, We're gonna do 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:32.560 another one of our infamous two part episodes about a company. 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:35.600 In this case, we're talking about the company Adobe. Yes, 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:39.040 we Uh, we've had people ask us about specific Adobe 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:41.159 products in the past, or products that used to be 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:43.800 owned by somebody else who that are now owned by Adobe. 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:46.080 And uh, we were talking about what we wanted to 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.040 do this week, and I think we wanted to. We 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:50.159 decided that we were going to try this adventure. And 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:52.440 it is an adventure because there's a lot going on 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:55.120 for a company that's that's not as old as some 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:57.760 of the others we've talked about, like IBM, for example, 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:01.400 HP General at Trick. You know these companies that have 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.600 century long histories. In this case, we're talking about a 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:08.320 company that was that was originally founded in nine two. 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:10.080 But before we get to that, First of all, we 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:14.080 should probably mention if you're not familiar with Adobe overall, 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:17.640 really what their focus was early early on, It was 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:23.200 all about, uh, the digital information you see on a display, 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:28.560 how do you replicate that reliably into things like a 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:32.679 hard copy format? You know, things like if you have 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:36.520 a certain font showing up on the screen, how can 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:39.960 you create some software that will allow you to make 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:44.319 that font translate over into say a hard copy form 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:48.160 like on a printer, Or just how you create new 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:51.800 types of fonts so that you aren't limited to a 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:58.200 single set of characters when you are creating documents for 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.720 the digital formats, because I mean, you don't want everything 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.520 to look exactly the same in uniformly. You want to 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:06.840 personalize stuff as much as you can and customize it. 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.600 So that was really what the Adobe founders were thinking about. 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:16.080 Those founders were John Warnock and Charles Gesh. That's right. Um. 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.000 As a matter of fact, this this whole thing, um, 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:20.880 you may be thinking of as sort of a a 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.960 PC type thing. I mean, Um, the technology we're talking 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:29.600 about here led to the popularity of desktop publishing, but 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.680 the the seeds of this technology were planted quite a 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:37.960 bit before. Um, PCs ended up on every desktop in 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:41.840 you know, the corporate world and on on our uh 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:44.720 laptops at home and all the other stuff. Um. It 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.000 really started in in the late nineties seventies at a 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:51.400 completely different company that that you probably have heard of before, 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:53.560 with the next at the beginning and the next at 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:58.440 the end, Xerox. UM. Xerox was known for being a 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:02.799 technological leader, but they liked to keep their technologies to themselves. 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:05.639 And we we've talked in the past about Apple, they're 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:12.000 they're quote unquote famous for having their their graphical user interface, 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:17.919 the Gooey stolen quote unquote allegedly from Zerox from Xerox 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:21.639 in their Palo Alto Research center by by uh well 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:25.600 actually various people who came in to see it, and 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:28.320 among those being Steve Jobs. I know there were others 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.160 from other companies. Well, I mean Steve Jobs has you 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:34.079 know he was famous for saying at one point during 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.680 an interview that you know, good artists copy great art 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:41.040 steel and this was sort of kind of part of 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:44.560 what he was talking about, you know, the graphic user 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:48.640 interface and even the mouse. Where technologies developed at this 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.840 Palo Alto research center or park. That's the Xerox Park. 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:56.040 It's it's a famous, famous research center because so many 0:03:56.120 --> 0:04:01.400 different technologies that we use today got their start in 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:05.840 this research center, and UH, either through licensing or outright theft, 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.600 have finally made their way to the general public. WHOA, whoa, WHOA. 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:13.200 Hold on a minute there, Jonathan. Okay, So when I 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:16.839 said that, I was really not thinking clearly. Xerox Park 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.960 did refine and helped popularize things like the computer mouse 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.520 and the graphic user interface, but in fact those were 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:27.920 not invented at Xerox Park. A man by the name 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:32.680 of Douglas Ingelbart first got those those concepts moving in 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.559 the early sixties, and it would be a decade later 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:38.320 when Xerox would really take advantage of them. So I 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:40.840 just wanted to correct that before all of you send 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:45.000 all your emails. Ever, Yeah, it's it's um, it's kind 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:47.400 of interesting. We should we should eventually do an episode 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:49.600 on on this group of people, because feeling would be 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:51.960 at least two. But yes, I agree, But because they 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:54.360 came up with so much and and that's in fact 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:58.360 how Warnock and Gesh met they were working on UH 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:03.640 technologies that would I would work with both bitmapped graphics 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:08.440 and uh well graphics and fonts together. UM. Two of 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.800 these these technologies were called JAM, which is capital J 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:16.960 a capital M and interpress UM and Xerox actually decided 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:21.359 they were going to use uh interpress as their own standard, 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.960 but they refused to license it to other people. And well, 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:27.560 you know, they was they were holding it close to 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:33.400 their vest if you will pardon the gaming um symbolism there, Yeah, 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:35.240 they were. They were really they wanted to keep it 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.560 to themselves. And and both GESHK and WARNOCKX saw that 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.200 something like this could could really help other people, and 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:44.839 they decided to uh to make a go of it. Yeah, 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:49.400 So in nineteen two they go and found Adobe system 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:52.640 Well then it was just Adobe. So they found a 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.919 company called Adobe. They secured two and a half million 0:05:56.000 --> 0:06:01.400 dollars in seed money from hembrecton Quist. So they get 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:05.200 this money that to found the company. Uh. And it 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:07.560 was you saw where it was named what it was 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.720 named after? Adobe? It was named after a creek that 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:17.280 ran through warnox backyard in Los Altos, California. They had 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.440 at that time, they had no physical office space in 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:25.320 two What they did have were two employees, just Warnock 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:30.560 and ges and zero dollars in revenue. Uh and uh 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:36.560 Warnox wife Marva designed the first Adobe logo. Now that 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.479 is not the same logo that Adobe uses today. They've 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:41.760 actually revised that logo a couple of times. And I'm 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:44.600 sure we'll mention it as it happens when we work 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:47.160 our way through the timeline. But yes, it was John 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:50.440 Warnock wife who designed the very first one. And um 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:55.120 so wait wait she was a designer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:57.560 it turns out, you know, well, what the whole company 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:02.800 was about originally original was how to reproduce, how to 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:07.719 accurately reproduce if I can splin infinitive, uh, the uh, 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.440 the digital text and graphics you would see on the 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:14.880 screen onto paper. That was the original focus of this company. Now, 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.200 since then, it has diversified quite a bit, although not 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:20.560 as not as much as some other companies you can 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.240 think of, Like there are technology companies out there that 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:26.680 have diversified so much that there are if you were 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.120 to look at two different branches of that company, it 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.600 would be very hard to draw any similarities between the two. 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:34.720 Like we we've talked about some of these companies that 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:39.080 got so big and so complex that you know, it 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.080 was almost like you're talking about completely different companies when 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.880 you're talking about different divisions that that's not exactly true 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:47.840 with Adobe. You mean like like ge makes, you know, 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:51.360 toaster ovens and jet engines. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:56.920 good example. Um and medical technology and guest top printers. Yeah. 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:01.160 I mean it's it's yeah, They're They're versification has been 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:05.760 more uh sort of, I don't know how. It's sort 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:09.000 of like the product lines you see in the store, like, oh, well, 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:11.280 you know, we've we've always made chocolate and vanilla flavors, 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:17.000 but now we're making mango. Yeah. Uh. Their their their 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.640 technologies are very much in the design world, right. So 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:28.240 then they started to develop a programming language. Technically it's 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:36.000 a dynamically typed concatinative. Because I can't say these words 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:42.800 programming language. I can say concatenation, concatenitive, concatenitive. Yeah. It's interesting, 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:45.360 isn't it. Yeah? Yeah, I'm like I look at them 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:47.320 like I have never seen this word before, and I'm 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.560 just going to ruin it. Anyway. It's a programming language 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:56.400 called PostScript, and this sort of forms the foundation for 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:00.360 the products that Adobe would develop over its early early 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:04.160 years as a company. So that all happens in a 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:08.040 D two and in eight three they officially incorporate in 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:12.760 the state of California. So Adobe becomes an official company 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:17.319 and they issue their first PostScript license. They also opened 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:21.480 their first office space in Mountain View, California, which, for 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:25.439 those of you who are familiar with the technology region 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:29.600 in California, that's Google's stomping ground these days, a lot 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:33.280 of people stomping ground. Frankly, yeah, well Google stomps bigger 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:38.160 than most companies. Uh. And and so they the first 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:43.120 license for PostScript technology goes to another notable company in 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.600 the technology world, another notable company in the technology work 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.680 world that has a name that begins with a letter A. 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:54.320 As a matter of fact, Apple, that is correct, Apples 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:59.240 the first license of PostScript technology to help to determine 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:04.200 these the displays fonts and things of that nature on 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:08.640 Apple computers. Uh. During that year, So this is technically 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:10.960 the second year of Adobe, but the first year of incorporation. 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:14.680 The company makes eighty three thousand dollars in revenue and 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:18.520 they have thirteen employees. So the sky is the limit. 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:22.480 Oh yeah, absolutely, Well, um, if you'll remember, we've talked about, 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:26.680 you know, of course Steve Jobs many times, but he 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.520 he had done some design work back when he was 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:34.240 studying in college. He was fascinated with typography, and one 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:36.600 of the things that he really wanted for the Macintosh computer, 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:42.319 which if you will remember, launched in UM, was its 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.800 ability to handle fonts. Well, that's thanks in large part 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:50.080 to Adobe's PostScript technology. Hey, I didn't trip to trip 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.560 over that word. I tripped over trip. Yeah, well we're 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.880 none of us are perfect, but yeah, it's uh. This 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.880 start started a close relationship between Apple and Adobe, which 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:06.480 which has not always been a smooth relationship, even even 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:11.000 when even in these early days, because Adobe was sort of, 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.360 for a while the only game in town when it 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:20.160 came to font technology and font development, and so they 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.679 could kind of depending upon whom you asked. If you 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:27.839 asked Apple, Apple would say their prices are getting too high. 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.600 You know, we're having to pay uh licensing fees that 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:36.120 are unreasonably high. And we'll get more into that as 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:41.080 that relationship develops. But in four this is when, ah, 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:46.360 that just really starts to come into play because Adobe 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:49.760 enters into a licensing agreement to develop Type one versions 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.600 of linotype fonts. And this is sort of the basis 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:57.520 of this this font war between Adobe and Apple, which 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:00.640 sounds like it's, you know, kind of boring, but it's 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:03.000 really interesting to me because you're talking about something that's 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:07.560 fundamental to the way that a computer displays information to 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:10.559 a user. So it is something that's really really important. 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.840 And if you know, if you do have essentially what 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:17.719 if what if in effect is a monopoly on that, 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:20.719 then you hold a lot of power. You know, it 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:22.640 doesn't seem like it would be much like it's the 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.320 font what what? What's the big deal? No? No, no, no, no, no, no, 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:28.120 no no. Let let me tell you just as a 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:33.080 personal anecdote, because you know, eighty four, I was, you know, twelve, 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:37.760 thirteen years old, um and uh you know, my my 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.200 older brother and if he wanted to do to uh 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.240 type up a paper for class, he got over to 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.720 the typewriter and typed it. And if you wanted fonts, 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:48.719 you know what, back when we talked about IBM, we 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:50.880 had a selectric typewriter at home. If you wanted to 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:52.480 change the funt, you had to change the ball on 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:56.920 the typewriter. And there those were not super cheap. We 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.840 only had I think maybe two um and they looked 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:02.000 like you had typed it, you know, and if you 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:04.320 make a mistake, you know, white out or go back 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.680 over it or type it again. So, uh, my friend, 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.440 I have a friend who who got one of the 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.280 very first Macintosh is and uh we took great delight 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:16.480 on and typing all the stuff out and all the 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:18.600 different fonts and printing it out, and it was like, wow, 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:20.880 that's really I mean, that's just so cool. I had 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:22.960 a printer for my Amiga that I got around the 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:26.800 same time that had no dessenders um. And for those 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:28.400 of you who are font people, you know what I'm 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.080 talking about. But the G s in this case, uh, 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.040 the lower case G with the thing that hangs below 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.719 the line the baseline of the font um. The G 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:40.000 was hyped up so that the bottom of the little 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:43.160 tail on the G was as low as let's say 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:45.800 the bottom of a B or an H. So it 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:47.880 looked all wonky. I got I got marked off for 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:49.920 that in class. But the way the way this was 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:55.840 done brought just made all this this technology more readily 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.560 available for a lot less than you would find it 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.080 if you wanted something like that pub lished you would 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:02.800 have to pay a lot of money for it, and 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:04.400 it was it was a lot of money, but not 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.280 at the same level that you would have if you 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:10.560 had it done professionally. So making these fonts available, that 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:14.199 the line of type fonts UM or the I T 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:18.959 C fonts, the International UM is it Typography Foundation something 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:20.760 like that. Let me, I'll look for that in a 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:23.440 second while you're talking. But yeah, UM, because I know, 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:24.800 I just thought here a second to get where it 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.560 was it UM. But yeah, the I T C fonts 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.440 were you know, those were available to people who were professionals, 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:32.440 and now all of a sudden, you know, making them 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:35.800 available to people with the desktop computer for maybe you know, 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:40.200 two or three thousand dollars. Yeah, you're talking about the 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:44.360 birth of desktop publishing, which you know suddenly it's it's 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:46.800 hard to kind of put this into perspective today, but 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:51.640 you imagine that if you go back far enough, publishing 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:56.120 something was beyond the means of the average person because 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:59.320 they just didn't have access to the sort of type 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:03.800 setting equipment they would need to to create layout and 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:08.120 and and produce things on their own. So without going 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.239 to some other company and hiring them to do it, 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:14.120 it was really difficult to do, and this was suddenly 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:18.000 creating the ability for the average person to get into 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:21.000 that and that was a very powerful thing. In fact, 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:22.880 that was one of the one of the main reasons 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.480 why personal computers were really taking off, because not only 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:29.040 were they being thought of as as an educational tool 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:32.160 for kids or a gaming device depending on how you 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:36.720 were looking at it, right, it also became a true 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:42.400 workstation for people who were into this this publishing arena. 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:47.960 And that same year they relocated their office to Palo Alto, 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.080 which is stomping grounds for this weekend tech um as 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:55.440 well as other companies, and their revenues hit two point 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:59.840 two million dollars and sixty eight percent of that revenue 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:04.920 came from Apple royalty payments, so Apple royalty payments for 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.080 the PostScript licenses are made up more than half of 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:10.600 that two point two million dollars in revenue. And at 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:14.400 that point they had twenty seven employees. So moving up 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:19.400 to UH eighty five, that's when Adobe actually ships PostScript 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.400 level one, so this is beyond the licensing, they're shipping 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.400 it as a product. And they also did the first 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:31.000 PostScript printer. Yes, go ahead, So I is the International 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:33.920 Typeface Corporation, and I apologize it. I had it in 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:36.120 the back of my head and then I switched pages 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:38.280 on my notes. It's it's easy for me to get 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.360 those acronyms and and and abbreviations all mixed up to 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:46.160 But yeah, so still early days. But so in eighty 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:48.320 four they made two point two million. In eighty five 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:50.840 they made four point six millions, so they more than 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:53.920 doubled their revenue. They went from twenty seven employees to 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:57.280 forty four employees, so they didn't quite double their workforce, 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.120 but they did double their revenue. And they began to 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:04.280 publish the PostScript Language Reference Manual, which is also known 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.880 as the Red Book. And if you take a look 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:11.160 at that first publication, that first edition, you'll know why 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:13.960 it's called the Red Book. It's enormous and it's read, 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:18.080 so it's a book. Is also a book. So there 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.560 we have the mystery solved. Why it is called the 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.280 Red Book. Is big, it is a book, it is read. 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:29.960 I can't help it. And so in so four years 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:34.520 after they've first founded this company, and three years after 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:39.040 they incorporated, they launched their initial public offering or i 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.440 p O. So this is where Adobe switches over from 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:46.200 being a privately owned company to a public company, publicly 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:50.320 traded company, and their opening stock price at that time 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:56.080 is eleven dollars a share. UH. Since they went public, 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:02.040 they have had that stock split several times, so they've 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.240 done two for one splits on multiple occasions, so which 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:08.920 means that you know, they've uh the the value of 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:11.240 the company has gone up as they have actually doubled 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:14.520 the number of stocks that were available. UH. At the 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:18.199 current stock price is, as as of the recording of 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.120 this podcast, which is at the end of October two 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:24.800 thousand and twelve, and this is pre trading dollars here, 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:28.080 thirty three dollars forty cents a share. So you figure 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:33.040 the stock has multiplied several times since they launched, and 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.800 the price itself has gone up. So the value of 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:39.959 the company has increased UH dramatically since they went public, 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:45.199 which you would hope, right it's to say otherwise is 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:51.720 what we call a bad thing. Anyway, they also had 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:55.720 their font library hit over one hundred fonts at this time. 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:59.280 Now since then we're talking about fonts that are there 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.240 are thousands of them, but that was big news back 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:10.320 in six Well, that's an understatement, but still but I'm 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:16.040 talking about the Adobe font library in particular, and that's when. 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:20.439 That's also when another thing with Apple happened, although it 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:24.679 was not particularly about the licensing. It was a fellow 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:28.239 who came from Apple. He was a developer on a 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:31.840 computer called the Leasa Lisa, which we talked about I 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:34.879 think a couple of times in this podcast in other episodes. 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:37.480 But the Lisa computer was not what you would call 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:43.159 a success. But Tom malloy, who worked at Apple, joined 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:48.040 Adobe and began to design typeface and PostScript products and 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:54.280 would climb quite high in the executive branch of Adobe. 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:59.000 Um So that was an interesting development, I thought. Moving 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:01.720 on to D seven, do you have anything to say 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:07.520 about six Adobe publishes One of their flagship products in 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:13.440 the early days anyway, illustrator let it let let people 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:19.360 create PostScript based graphics. Now, essentially PostScript graphics are line art. 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:22.080 So when if you've heard our our episode where we 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:25.960 talked about the different types of graphics computer graphics, line 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:30.240 art is has some advantages over bitmapped art in the 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:34.560 specifically when it comes to scaling. So when you change 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:38.720 the scale of line art, you don't have to worry 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:44.840 about problems with resolution. No, not generally, because vector graphics 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:49.320 basically that the computer can interpolate, uh you know, the 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:51.320 starting and ending points of each of the lines and 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:53.880 the line art. It's all based on math. Yeah, so 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:57.240 you know, math is what computers compute. Really all it 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:58.639 all it takes is for it to do that. Now, 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.240 if you're uh, drinking a bitmapped graphic, it's not such 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:05.000 a problem. The computer just makes uh, you know, a 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:07.920 decision on which of the pixels it needs to toss 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:11.120 outing it because because of bitmapped image do so well 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:13.560 is a collection of pixels, right, So you're think of 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.520 a bitmapped image as a bunch of different dots of 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.639 different colors. And you know, the more dots you have, 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:23.040 the greater the resolution in general. And if you but 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:26.240 when you expand a bitmapped picture, you do not get 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:29.439 more dots to fill in the space between the dots. 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:31.760 So eventually those dots, the space between the dots gets 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:35.159 quite large, and that's where you start getting the problems 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:38.199 with resolution. So that's when we talk about if you 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:41.879 have a camera with a certain number of megapixels, the 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:45.639 more megapixels there are in general, that means the larger 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:49.040 you can you can scale up an image before you 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:52.960 start encountering problems with resolution in general. There are other 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:56.960 elements that, of course play very heavily into an image 0:21:57.040 --> 0:21:59.520 is quality, and we've talked about that in our digital 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:03.040 photograph the episodes. But but that that was one of 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:06.119 the things that gave artists a new tool, was this 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:10.119 Illustrator suite of software that would let them create graphics 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:13.720 within UH. This this PostScript language, and now that the 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:18.600 PostScript pretty much lived inside printers um at this point 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:23.080 and according to UH, according to what Adobe has said, UM, 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:27.200 and the inspiration for Illustrator came from John Warnock watching 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:30.760 his wife Marva work, and he remembered she was the 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:34.399 one who who developed the Adobe logo, and so he 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:36.680 what he was doing was he was watching her her 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:39.199 draw on paper and said, you know, it would be 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:43.320 really cool if we could use PostScript to do this, 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:46.359 to give designers the ability to use a computer to 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:50.960 work on design, um, you know, and and and make 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:55.640 this a tool for real designers to do real work. UM. 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:58.160 So that's that's sort of you know, what was going on. 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:03.280 An engineer named Mike schuster Um was behind Illustrated. He 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:05.160 was the one who was assigned the task of making 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:09.639 this happen UM and uh, you know it it wasn't 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:16.199 terribly inexpensive. You know, when it was released it was fos. 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:21.919 But again this is taken in context other other UM 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:26.639 software that was similar in in uh in its kind 0:23:26.760 --> 0:23:29.040 where you know, it was much more expensive than that. 0:23:29.160 --> 0:23:31.720 So this was it gave people an opportunity to do 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:34.199 that and to use it the pen tool, which was 0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:38.440 more of an approximation of drawing by hand. Of course, 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:41.520 at that point, I think most people were using a 0:23:41.560 --> 0:23:44.640 mouse with it than a pen that um. I think 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:47.320 it was probably a few years later when it became 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:50.480 more common to use a pen and a tablet to 0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:52.680 do it. But you know, still it was a different 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:55.959 way to do illustration on a computer, and it was 0:23:56.160 --> 0:23:59.920 it was a popular tool. By this time. The revenues 0:24:00.160 --> 0:24:03.160 for Adobe head hit about thirty nine million, and they 0:24:03.160 --> 0:24:07.479 had a seventy two employees and fort of the revenue 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:09.960 at this point came from Apple, So Apple playing a 0:24:10.000 --> 0:24:13.000 diminishing role in their overall revenue is still a very 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:17.040 important one. I mean, thirty nine million is no chump change. 0:24:17.840 --> 0:24:20.600 But at this point they also started to license PostScript 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:24.160 to companies like little companies with little names like HP 0:24:24.560 --> 0:24:27.040