Charlie Jackson is an American computer software entrepreneur who founded

Silicon Beach Software Silicon Beach Software, Inc. was an early American developer of software products for the Apple Macintosh, Macintosh personal computer. It was founded in San Diego, California, in 1984 by Charlie Jackson (software), Charlie Jackson and his wife Ha ...

in 1984 and co-founded FutureWave Software in 1993. FutureWave created the first version of what is now

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 ...

. He was an early investor in

Wired Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...

magazine, Outpost.com, Streamload and Angelic Pictures. Jackson is currently founder/CEO of Silicon Beach Software, which develops and publishes application software for Windows 10.

Business life

Startups

Jackson founded

in 1984. The company developed and published Macintosh software. It was best known for its graphics editors SuperPaint,

Digital Darkroom Digital Darkroom was an Apple Macintosh graphics program for editing gray-scale photos. It was published by Silicon Beach Software in 1987. It was programmed by Ed Bomke and Don Cone. Digital Darkroom was the first Macintosh program to incorporat ...

and the multimedia authoring application SuperCard. Silicon Beach was acquired by

Aldus Corporation Aldus Corporation was an American software company best known for its pioneering desktop publishing software. PageMaker, the company's most well-known product, ushered in the modern era of desktop computers such as the Macintosh seeing widesp ...

in 1990. That year he was named Entrepreneur of the Year in San Diego for High Tec

In 1984, Jackson also founded the San Diego Macintosh User Group. Jackson co-founded FutureWave Software with Jonathan Gay in 1993.MACROMEDIA FLASH BACK
Digital Archaeology FutureWave developed and published FutureSplash Animator.

Macromedia Macromedia, Inc. was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Adobe Flash, Flash and Adobe Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its riv ...

acquired FutureWave in 1996 and renamed the product Flash 1.0, which in turn became

when Macromedia was acquired by

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), formerly Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American software, computer software company based in San Jose, California. It offers a wide range of programs from web design tools, photo manipulation and vector creation, through to ...

.Grandmasters of Flash: An Interview with the Creators of Flash
Cold Hard Flash Since late 2009, Jackson has been a mentor for San Diego sessions of the Founder Institute. In 2015, using the name Silicon Beach Software again, he founded a company to develop graphics software for Windows 10. The company's first product is SaviDraw.

Investments

Although no longer an active seed investor, Jackson made some notable investments in the 1990s. In 1993, he and

Nicholas Negroponte Nicholas Negroponte (born December 1, 1943) is a Greek American architect. He is the founder and chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also founded the One Laptop per Child Association (OLPC). Negroponte ...

were the two seed investors in

magazine. In 1994, Jackson loaned Wired Ventures the money that allowed the company to start up

HotWired ''Hotwired'' (1994–1999) was the first commercial online magazine, launched on October 27, 1994. Although it was part of the print magazine Wired (magazine), ''Wired'', ''Hotwired'' carried original content. History Andrew Anker, Wired ...

, the first commercial web magazine. Jackson was the seed investor in Outpost.com, an early online reseller of computer equipment. Outpost.com gained some notoriety for its TV ads in whic
gerbils were shot out of a cannon
an
wolves attacked a high school marching band
Jackson was the first investor in Angelic Pictures, Inc. Jackson was the first investor in Streamload, an online media storage and retrieval company that was subsequently renamed

Nirvanix Nirvanix is an American-based provider of business phone systems, VoIP services, hosted PBX, SIP Trunks, and cloud storage services headquartered in San Diego, California, United States. The company offers a variety of business phone solutions ...

and he was the first investor in Pacific Coast Software, publisher of WebCatalog, an e-commerce package.

Other Businesses

Jackson is a principal in Angelic Pictures, Inc., a movie production company. He has been an executive producer of Angelic's movies, ''The Month of August'', ''Hole in One: American Pie Plays Golf'', ''Beach Bar'', ''Music High'', ''La Migra'', ''Fearless'' and ''Space Samurai: Oasis'

Jackson founded Silicon Beach Software in 2015. It is a developer/publisher of multimedia software for Windows 1

Jackson owned two small businesses in San Diego, CA. Epic Volleyball Club was a junior volleyball organization which trained approximately 400 athletes annually. VolleyHut.com was an online reseller of volleyball equipment. In 2000, VolleyHut challenged Amazon.com on its use of patent

Both businesses were shut down after pandemic lockdowns.

Early life and education

Jackson (born 1948) grew up in Imperial Beach, California. As a teenager, he also spent three years in

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

, Turkey, where he earned a B.E.P.C. degree from a French school. Jackson graduated from Mar Vista High School in Imperial Beach in 1967, and was later inducted into the inaugural class of the Sweetwater Union High School District Hall of Fame in 2001. He earned a BA degree in Near Eastern Studies from

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

in 1972, a master's degree in

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

from San Diego State in 1978 and a C.Phil. in linguistics from

UCSD The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing ...

in 1980. Jackson was an active duty Marine Corps officer from 1972 to 1976 and Reserve officer from 1976 to 1989.

Sports

Jackson's sporting background is varied and extensive. While in Istanbul, he won the county youth championship in pole vault. In high school, he competed in cross country and track and field. At

, Jackson was a letter winner in

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

and

lightweight rowing Lightweight rowing (abbreviated Lwt or Lt) is a category of Rowing (sport), rowing where limits are placed on the maximum body weight of competitors. According to the International Rowing Federation (International Rowing Federation, FISA), this we ...

br>
His senior year he was co-captain of the lightweight rowing team. In the Marine Corps, Jackson became a competitive rifle and pistol shooter, earning the Marine Corps' highest award for rifle shooting, the Distinguished badg

In 1978, he was the High Marine at the National Championships for Service Rifle, held at Camp Perry, Ohio. In the '90s, Jackson returned to competitive shooting. In 1993 and 1994, he earned a spot on the US National Team in Rapid Fire Pistol and competed internationally.''United States Shooting Team 1994 Media Guide''. p. 45, 132. In 1996, his three-man team won the U.S. National Championship in Rapid Fire Pistol. In 1994, Jackson attended the World Masters Games in Brisbane, Australia, where over 24,000 athletes competed for World Championship titles in their respective age groups. In the 45 - 49 age group, Jackson won Gold medals in Rapid Fire Pistol and 4-man

Beach Volleyball Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two to four players each on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side o ...

and a Silver medal in 2-man Beach Volleyball. From 1997 to 2000, Jackson served on the board of USA Volleyball, chairing the Olympic Beach Volleyball Committee. Jackson was a member of the 2000 U.S. Olympic Team in the capacity of Assistant Team Leader, Beach Volleyball. In 2000 and 2001, Jackson owned and operated Beach Volleyball America (BVA), a U.S. professional beach volleyball tou

From 1999 to 2021, Jackson owned and operated Epic Volleyball Club, a junior club in the San Diego area.

References

External links

Silicon Beach Software (current)
*The Computer Chronicles
TV Coverage of MacWorld Boston 1988
including Silicon Beach Software's Charlie Jackson
San Diego Macintosh User GroupWired.comAngelic Pictures
*
Founder Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Charlie American computer businesspeople Wired (magazine) people American volleyball coaches People from Imperial Beach, California UCLA Bruins men's soccer players 1948 births United States Marine Corps officers Living people Military personnel from California Men's association football players not categorized by position Association football players not categorized by nationality