Mark Pelczarski

Mark Pelczarski
Pelczarski, Mark
Occupation	Founder Penguin Software, Software Developer

Career

Mark Pelczarski was one of the pioneers of personal-computer graphics and an important figure in the formative years of the commercial software industry. A programmer, educator, writer, entrepreneur, and founder of Penguin Software, Pelczarski helped transform computer graphics on the Apple II from a technical curiosity into a practical creative tool. His programs— including Magic Paintbrush, The Complete Graphics System, Special Effects, and especially The Graphics Magician— gave programmers and artists tools for creating colorful pictures and animation at a time when sophisticated graphics software barely existed for personal computers.

Pelczarski's involvement with computers began well before the arrival of the personal computer. As a high-school student in suburban Chicago in 1970, he enrolled in an unusually advanced computer-programming course taught by Paul Halac. Students wrote FORTRAN programs for an IBM 1130, entering their work on punched cards and waiting for printed results. Pelczarski also gained access to a Hewlett-Packard time-sharing system and experimented with programming outside his regular assignments. A baseball fan, he even created a statistics-based simulation of the 1970 World Series.

He continued his education at the University of Illinois, earning a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a master's degree in education with an emphasis on computer-aided instruction. As a research assistant in the university's computer-science department, Pelczarski had extensive access to PLATO, the pioneering networked computer-education system developed at Illinois. PLATO exposed him not only to educational uses of computers but also to interactive graphics, games, communication, and the emerging idea that computers could serve as creative and social tools rather than merely calculation machines.

After college, Pelczarski returned to education. He taught mathematics at an Illinois high school and helped establish a computer club for his students at a time when access to computers remained difficult. The club initially had no computer of its own, requiring students to write programs on paper. Eventually the school obtained remote computer access and later a TRS-80, which Pelczarski incorporated into a "computer math" course. He also taught BASIC programming at a local community college.

Pelczarski's first personal computer was a Commodore PET, purchased in 1978. He wrote a football simulation for the machine that was distributed through CURSOR, a subscription service that supplied PET programs on cassette. He soon became frustrated with the early PET, however, and returned it.

The machine that changed the direction of his career was the Apple II.

In 1979 Pelczarski married and began teaching COBOL programming at Northern Illinois University. That same year he purchased an Apple II Plus. Unlike most contemporary personal computers, the Apple II offered true high-resolution color graphics that could be manipulated at the pixel level. Pelczarski quickly became fascinated by its possibilities.

A student showed him a simple drawing program that used the Apple II's paddle controllers to draw on its high-resolution screen. Inspired by the demonstration, Pelczarski began experimenting with graphics programming himself. Within months he had developed his own drawing software.

Initially called simply Drawing Program, the program was placed on a disk along with a Space Invaders-style game and a slot-machine simulation. Pelczarski photocopied instructions, packaged the disk in a plastic bag, and began demonstrating it to computer stores under the name MP Software. Stores sometimes paid cash and sometimes traded computer equipment such as memory or printers for copies of his software.

The drawing program evolved into Magic Paintbrush, one of the earliest commercial painting programs for the Apple II. The initials "MP" conveniently could mean either Mark Pelczarski or Magic Paintbrush. Pelczarski would later jokingly offer another interpretation— "Magnificent Penguin"— a joke that unexpectedly helped provide the name of his future company.

SoftSide

Pelczarski's knowledge of the rapidly developing microcomputer field soon opened another door. In late 1979 he saw an advertisement seeking an editor for a new Apple II-oriented edition of SoftSide magazine. Despite having virtually no professional publishing experience, the 25-year-old Pelczarski applied and was hired.

The new publication debuted in January 1980 under the name AppleSeed. After objections to the name from Apple Computer, it became the SoftSide Apple Edition. Pelczarski initially worked from Illinois, but after completing the spring semester he left his teaching position at Northern Illinois University and moved with his wife Cheryl to New Hampshire, where SoftSide was based.

Pelczarski arrived at SoftSide at a remarkable moment in personal-computer history. The magazine and its associated Software Exchange provided a marketplace for independent programmers just as a recognizable commercial software industry was beginning to emerge. During Pelczarski's association with the operation, the Software Exchange handled programs from developers who would soon become major figures in the industry, including software associated with Ken and Roberta Williams and Douglas Carlston.

Pelczarski helped oversee Apple II material, wrote editorials and articles, prepared program listings, and continued developing Magic Paintbrush. The experience gave him an unusually broad view of the young software industry and introduced him to programmers, writers, publishers, and entrepreneurs who were inventing the business almost as they went along.

He and Cheryl remained in New Hampshire for less than a year. Homesick for Illinois and increasingly convinced that other opportunities existed in the software business, Pelczarski resigned his editorial position near the end of 1980, although he continued contributing programs and articles to SoftSide afterward.

Micro Co-op

Back in Illinois, Mark and Cheryl Pelczarski established Micro Co-op, an unusual software-buying cooperative inspired partly by the consumer-oriented philosophy of the outdoor retailer REI. Rather than simply selling as many programs as possible, Micro Co-op attempted to identify worthwhile software, provide members with useful information and comparative evaluations, and sell products at favorable prices.

The cooperative eventually attracted more than 3,000 members.

At the same time, Pelczarski continued experimenting with Apple II graphics. Programs such as On-Line Systems' graphical adventures had demonstrated how much could be accomplished with the machine's limited graphics hardware. Pelczarski explored techniques such as dithering—mixing patterns of the Apple II's few available colors to create the visual impression of many more.

The result was The Complete Graphics System, published in 1981 under the name Co-op Software. The package offered Apple II owners a collection of tools for creating and manipulating computer graphics. Its success quickly eclipsed the mail-order business. Within a short time, sales of The Complete Graphics System were bringing in more revenue than the remainder of Micro Co-op.

Pelczarski increasingly realized that his future lay in developing and publishing software rather than operating the cooperative.

Penguin Software

The name Penguin Software emerged almost accidentally.

When a SoftSide reader had previously asked what the initials in MP Software meant, Pelczarski jokingly replied that they stood for "Magnificent Penguin." He accompanied the answer with a penguin drawing. The joke reappeared in the logo used by Co-op Software.

Programmer and Creative Computing writer David Lubar subsequently reviewed The Complete Graphics System and referred to Pelczarski's work as "Penguin Graphics." Pelczarski liked the name, and in 1981 Penguin Software was born.

Lubar's review also began an important technical collaboration. Both men were experimenting with methods of manipulating Apple II graphics. Their work led to Special Effects, which allowed pictures to be flipped, mirrored, altered, and painted with patterned brushes. The software helped introduce techniques that would later become commonplace in computer paint programs.

Pelczarski also brought people he had known earlier into the growing company. Former SoftSide editor Dave Albert and his wife Mary joined Penguin after Pelczarski invited them to Illinois. The Alberts received an ownership interest in the company and contributed publishing, editorial, and management skills that complemented Pelczarski's technical background. Other friends and associates, including Mark and Trish Glenn, also became involved.

Penguin developed an informal culture that reflected Pelczarski's personality and the hobbyist roots of the early personal-computer industry. The company's offices were located in houses rather than conventional corporate buildings, and Pelczarski's collection of penguin figures became part of its identity.

But underneath the whimsical atmosphere was a company doing serious pioneering work in computer graphics.

The Graphics Magician

Penguin's most influential product became The Graphics Magician, introduced in 1982.

One of the great limitations of early personal computers was storage. A finished high-resolution bitmap consumed precious disk space. Instead of simply storing complete pictures pixel by pixel, The Graphics Magician could record instructions describing how a picture should be reconstructed—drawing lines, filling areas, and performing other operations when the image was displayed.

This approach dramatically reduced the amount of storage required for many images and made the system particularly valuable for graphic adventures and educational software. Pelczarski and Jon Niedfeldt worked on the picture-creation system, while David Lubar and Chris Jochumson contributed graphics and animation routines. The package was eventually made available on multiple computer platforms.

More important than the technology alone was Pelczarski's decision to make the system accessible to other developers.

Penguin deliberately sold The Graphics Magician at a relatively modest price and allowed commercial programmers to use its graphics routines in their own products without expensive royalties. Penguin asked developers to credit the graphics software in the finished program. As a result, notices identifying Penguin's graphics technology began appearing in software from numerous publishers, effectively turning the products created by Penguin's customers into advertisements for Penguin itself.

The Graphics Magician became widely used throughout the early software industry. Publishers and developers used Penguin's tools to produce graphics for adventure games, educational titles, and other programs. Among the companies associated with the technology were Sierra On-Line and Sir-Tech Software.

Pelczarski also took an unusually liberal position on copy protection. The Graphics Magician was distributed without conventional disk copy protection so legitimate owners—particularly programmers depending on the software for their own work—could make backup copies. This reflected Pelczarski's continuing sympathy with the early "hacker ethic": software tools should encourage experimentation, programming, and creativity rather than place unnecessary obstacles in the user's way.

Penguin increasingly described itself simply as "the graphics people."

Writer and Graphics Educator

Pelczarski remained an educator even while running a software company. He wrote extensively about computer graphics, including a regular column for Softalk magazine titled "Graphically Speaking."

The columns explained Apple II graphics programming and introduced readers to subjects such as high-resolution graphics, animation, three-dimensional effects, shape tables, color, and picture storage.

The material was collected into the 1983 book Graphically Speaking: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Apple, published by Softalk Books. Decades later Pelczarski returned to the material, and an enhanced edition of Graphically Speaking appeared in 2019.

From Graphics Tools to Games

Penguin's graphics software naturally brought the company into contact with programmers using those tools to create games.

One of the most important was teenager Antonio Antiochia, who submitted a text adventure to Pelczarski. Pelczarski liked the game but believed the market was moving toward illustrated adventures. Penguin supplied Antiochia with its graphics technology, and the project became Transylvania, one of the company's best-known releases.

Penguin subsequently expanded well beyond graphics utilities. Its catalog included adventure games, action games, role-playing games, educational products, and productivity software. Titles associated with the company included The Quest, Spy's Demise, The Coveted Mirror, Xyphus, Sword of Kadash, The Crimson Crown, Oo-Topos, and the Transylvania series.

Pelczarski's role accordingly expanded from programmer to publisher, producer, designer, and company president. He evaluated outside submissions, worked with programmers and artists, managed product development, and helped guide Penguin through an industry that was becoming dramatically more professional and competitive.

Comprehend and Cross-Platform Development

As the personal-computer market fragmented among the Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari computers, IBM PC, Macintosh, and other systems, Penguin faced a problem common to every software publisher: converting a program to another computer could require much of it to be rewritten.

Pelczarski and Jeffrey Jay developed Comprehend, an adventure-development language and interpreter system designed to separate an adventure game's content from the underlying computer hardware. Interpreters could be created for individual computer platforms while designers wrote the adventure itself in the common Comprehend language.

Combined with Penguin's graphics technology, the system allowed the company to publish illustrated adventures across several different computers with much less platform-specific redevelopment. Comprehend was used for later versions of Transylvania and other Polarware adventures including The Crimson Crown and Oo-Topos.

The concept anticipated techniques that would become increasingly important in software development: separating content from the engine used to present it and designing development systems capable of targeting multiple computer platforms.

A Changing Software Industry

Pelczarski had entered the personal-computer business during an unusually cooperative period. Early publishers and programmers frequently exchanged technical information, dealer contacts, financial information, and business advice. He developed friendships with figures including Douglas Carlston of Brøderbund, Ken Williams of Sierra On-Line, and Al and Margot Tommervik of Softalk. By 1984, however, that atmosphere was changing.

Competition was increasing, development budgets were growing, retailers and distributors were becoming more powerful, and smaller publishers were finding it increasingly difficult to compete against better-financed companies. Relationships that had begun during the informal hobbyist era were inevitably affected by commercial pressures.

Pelczarski and Douglas Carlston even discussed the possibility of combining Penguin and Brøderbund, although no agreement resulted. A later disagreement at the Consumer Electronics Show over apparently similar product concepts illustrated how much the industry's earlier atmosphere of trust had been strained. Pelczarski and Carlston remained friends, but the episode reflected a larger transformation taking place throughout the software business.

Penguin nevertheless continued expanding its products and technologies.

Penguin Becomes Polarware

By the middle of the 1980s, Penguin Software had another problem that had little to do with programming.

The international book publisher Penguin Books objected to the company's use of the Penguin name. Fighting a large corporation over the trademark could have required legal expenses that a small software publisher could ill afford. Pelczarski therefore chose to change the company's name.

Beginning in 1986, Penguin Software became Polarware.

At roughly the same time, Pelczarski was trying to reposition the company for an increasingly difficult software market. One ambitious project was The Spy's Adventures, an educational game concept that combined geography with an international pursuit. Unfortunately for Polarware, Brøderbund's enormously successful Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? reached the market first with a broadly similar combination of geography and detective-style gameplay. Although the similarities appear to have been coincidental, Carmen Sandiego's success made Polarware's competing concept considerably more difficult to establish.

The economics of independent software publishing were also deteriorating. Distributor failures and unpaid accounts could be devastating to a small publisher, while the cost of developing and marketing software continued to rise.

By 1987 Pelczarski decided to leave the company he had created.

Polarware was purchased by four employees— Jeffrey "JJ" Jay, Steve Greene, Peg Smith, and Trish Glenn. The company continued briefly, including publication of products in the Electric Crayon line, before being acquired by Merit Software in 1988. The Polarware name subsequently disappeared.

Pelczarski's papers, software, correspondence, development disks, program listings, game designs, and other materials from the Penguin and Polarware years were later donated to The Strong National Museum of Play, preserving an important documentary record of one of the pioneering independent software publishers of the early personal-computer era.

Music and MIDI

Leaving Polarware did not end Pelczarski's experiments with computers.

His next major interest combined computing with another enthusiasm: music.

During the late 1980s he experimented with MIDI, the recently established standard that allowed computers and electronic musical instruments to communicate. Pelczarski played steel drums in a group called Stainless Steel and initially developed software that could supply computerized percussion and bass accompaniment during rehearsals and performances.

The project became MIDI OnStage, published through Pelczarski's company Magic Tree. Although changes in computer hardware limited the product's commercial life, it represented another example of Pelczarski applying personal computers to a creative field that was only beginning to adopt digital technology.

His work with computerized music led to professional recording-studio projects as well. Pelczarski helped establish portions of Jimmy Buffett's Shrimpboat Sound studio in Key West, receiving a credit on Buffett's Hot Water album, and later worked on Dan Fogelberg's recording studio in Colorado.

Music remained an important part of his life. Pelczarski played steel pan, percussion, and stringed instruments in bands for decades and on several occasions performed steel drums on stage with Jimmy Buffett.

Return to Education and the Internet

Pelczarski eventually returned to the field where his professional career had begun: education.

During the 1990s, as the Internet began moving into mainstream use, he became involved in online learning. In 1996 he taught one of the early Internet-based college courses and developed software to support communication among students.

One result was Dialogue, an early Web discussion-forum system. Rather than treating the software solely as a commercial product, Pelczarski made it available to other educational institutions, and it was adopted by universities experimenting with Internet-based instruction.

He went on to teach programming for approximately twenty years at Elgin Community College in Illinois, bringing his career full circle from classroom teacher to software entrepreneur and back to educator.

Pelczarski also continued working as a programmer and technology consultant. His projects included mapping technology for early travel-planning CD-ROM products and other software-development work.

Decades after the beginning of his programming career, he even became involved in political technology. During Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign, Pelczarski volunteered as a technology architect. Among his work was the development of simulation technology used to examine polling-place capacity and voter waiting times.

Legacy

Mark Pelczarski occupies an unusual position in personal-computer history because his career connected several different generations of computing.

He learned programming when computers filled rooms and programs were submitted on punched cards. At the University of Illinois he experienced PLATO, one of the earliest large-scale interactive computer networks. He taught students using time-sharing terminals and the first generation of personal computers. He became an Apple II programmer during the years when commercial microcomputer software was often packaged in plastic bags and sold directly to computer stores.

Then, through Penguin Software, he helped turn that cottage industry into a genuine software-publishing business.

Magic Paintbrush appeared when the idea of casually drawing pictures on a home computer was itself novel. The Complete Graphics System and Special Effects expanded what Apple II owners could create, while The Graphics Magician placed sophisticated graphics and animation capabilities into the hands of independent programmers.

Just as importantly, Pelczarski understood that a development tool became more valuable when other people were encouraged to build with it. Penguin's low prices, programmer-friendly licensing, rejection of copy protection for development tools, and requirement that commercial users simply acknowledge Penguin's technology helped spread its graphics routines throughout the software industry.

That philosophy reflected the culture from which Pelczarski emerged. He belonged to the generation of programmers who entered personal computing before there were established rules for how software companies were supposed to operate. Teachers became programmers; programmers became magazine editors; editors became publishers; and software companies sometimes grew out of programs packaged in plastic bags on kitchen tables.

Pelczarski managed to occupy nearly all of those roles.

His career after Penguin was equally characteristic of his continuing curiosity. He moved from graphics and games into MIDI and digital recording, from there into Internet-based education and Web software, and later into consulting. Education remained a consistent thread throughout the entire story. Whether teaching mathematics, explaining Apple II graphics in Softalk, creating development tools for programmers, building early online-learning systems, or teaching college programming courses, Pelczarski repeatedly used computers as tools for enabling other people to create and learn.

For that reason, his legacy extends beyond Penguin Software itself. Mark Pelczarski was one of the people who helped establish the idea that a personal computer could be a creative instrument—not merely a machine on which to run software, but a machine with which ordinary users could draw, animate, program, make music, communicate, and create software of their own.

List of major works

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