Robert Adamson (software Pioneer)

Robert Adamson (software Pioneer)

Robert G. Adamson III (born 19 October 1947, Salt Lake City, Utah) is an American software pioneer.

Adamson graduated in Computer Science from the University of Utah in 1971. In 1981, he founded Software Generation Technology Corp. and wrote, one of the first fully interpretive languages for IBM mainframe computers. STG was sold to Pansophic Systems and later acquired by Computer Associates where the product was renamed GENER/OL.

Later he founded Nostradamus Inc. and wrote Instant Replay, one of the first multimedia tools for personal computers. Instant Replay combined software demos with photos and audio for distribution on floppy diskettes. Instant Replay was used by thousands of large companies such as Intel, Microsoft and Novel, and competed for years with Dan Bricklin’s Demo Maker. Adamson also wrote well known utilities such as Noblink and Hardrunner, both of which received PC Magazines Editors Choice Awards.

Adamson wrote MediaForge, one of the first multimedia authoring tools for Windows. Mediaforge was sold to Strata and was awarded Best of Comdex finalist in the area of Development Software in 1994. Over 50 million MediaForge runtimes were distributed through various vendors including Morpheus and MyFamily. MediaForge is currently in use by XMLAuthor Inc. for custom development of internet applications such as CinemaForge.

Adamson is still involved in software development with his own software development company XMLAuthor Inc. He is working on new RIA and internet video technologies. In 2007 Adamson published Rainhut, a science fiction novel. The novel contains references to DTK (dare to know), a chaos based software system used to assist in the invention of advanced technologies. Development of the DTK software system is far too radical and expensive to attract serious investors at this time, so perhaps the concept remains for future generations to build, according to Adamson.