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General Computer Corporation (GCC), later GCC Technologies, was an American hardware and software company formed in 1981 by Doug Macrae, John Tylko, and Kevin Curran. The company began as a
video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
developer and created the arcade games ''
Ms. Pac-Man is a 1982 maze arcade game developed by General Computer Corporation and published by Midway. It is the first sequel to '' Pac-Man'' (1980) and the first entry in the series to not be made by Namco. Controlling the title character, Pac-Man's ...
'' (1982) and ''
Food Fight A food fight is a form of chaotic collective behavior, in which foodstuffs are thrown at others in the manner of projectiles. These projectiles are not made nor meant to harm others, but to simply ignite a fight filled with spontaneous food t ...
'' (1983) as well as designing the hardware for the Atari 7800 console and many of its games. In 1984 the company pivoted to developing home computer peripherals, such as the HyperDrive hard drive for the
Macintosh 128K The Apple Macintosh—later rebranded as the Macintosh 128K—is the original Apple Inc., Apple Macintosh personal computer. It played a pivotal role in establishing desktop publishing as a general office function. The motherboard, a CRT monit ...
, and printers. GCC was disestablished in 2015.


History


Video games

GCC started out making mod-kits for existing arcade games - for example ''Super Missile Attack'', which was sold as an enhancement board to
Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc. (1972–1992), Atari, Inc., ...
's '' Missile Command''. At first Atari sued, but ultimately dropped the suit and hired GCC to develop games for Atari (and stop making enhancement boards for Atari's games without permission). They created an enhancement kit for ''
Pac-Man originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. Th ...
'' called ''Crazy Otto'' which they sold to Midway, who in turn sold it as the sequel ''
Ms. Pac-Man is a 1982 maze arcade game developed by General Computer Corporation and published by Midway. It is the first sequel to '' Pac-Man'' (1980) and the first entry in the series to not be made by Namco. Controlling the title character, Pac-Man's ...
''; they also developed ''
Jr. Pac-Man ''Jr. Pac-Man'' is an arcade game, developed by General Computer Corporation and released by Bally Midway on August 13, 1983. Unlike prior games in the series, the maze in ''Jr. Pac-Man'' scrolls horizontally and has no escape tunnels. Gameplay ...
'', that game's successor. Under Atari, Inc., GCC made the original arcade games ''
Food Fight A food fight is a form of chaotic collective behavior, in which foodstuffs are thrown at others in the manner of projectiles. These projectiles are not made nor meant to harm others, but to simply ignite a fight filled with spontaneous food t ...
'', ''
Quantum In physics, a quantum (plural quanta) is the minimum amount of any physical entity (physical property) involved in an interaction. The fundamental notion that a physical property can be "quantized" is referred to as "the hypothesis of quantizati ...
'', and the unreleased ''Nightmare''; developed the Atari 2600 versions of ''Ms. Pac-Man'' and ''
Centipede Centipedes (from New Latin , "hundred", and Latin , " foot") are predatory arthropods belonging to the class Chilopoda (Ancient Greek , ''kheilos'', lip, and New Latin suffix , "foot", describing the forcipules) of the subphylum Myriapoda, an ...
''; produced over half of the Atari 5200 cartridges; and developed the chip design for the Atari 7800, plus the first round of cartridges for that system.


Peripherals

In 1984, the company changed direction to make peripherals for
Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
computers: the HyperDrive (the Mac's first internal hard drive), the WideWriter 360 large format inkjet printer, and the Personal Laser Printer (the first QuickDraw laser printer). Prior to closing, the company focused exclusively on laser printers. HyperDrive was unusual because the original Macintosh did not have any internal interface for hard disks. It was attached directly to the
CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...
, and ran about seven times faster than Apple's "Hard Disk 20", an external hard disk that attached to the floppy disk port. The HyperDrive was considered an elite upgrade at the time, though it was hobbled by Apple's
Macintosh File System Macintosh File System (MFS) is a volume (computing), volume format (or disk file system) created by Apple Computer for storing Computer file, files on 400K floppy disks. MFS was introduced with the original Macintosh 128K, Apple Macintosh comput ...
, which had been designed to manage 400K
floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...
s; as with other early Macintosh hard disks, the user had to segment the drive such that it appeared to be two or more partitions, called Drawers. The second issue of MacTech Magazine, in January 1985, included a letter that summed up the excitement: In 1986 the company shipped the "HyperDrive 2000", a 20MB internal hard disk that also included a
Motorola 68881 The Motorola 68881 and Motorola 68882 are floating-point units (FPUs) used in some computer systems in conjunction with Motorola's 32-bit 68020 or 68030 microprocessors. These coprocessors are external chips, designed before floating point math bec ...
floating-point unit In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can b ...
, but the speed advantage of the HyperDrive had been negated on the new Macintosh Plus computers by Apple's inclusion of an external
SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, electrical, optical and logical interface ...
port. General Computer responded with the "HyperDrive FX-20" external SCSI hard disk, but drowned in a sea of competitors that offered fast large hard disks. General Computer changed its name to GCC Technologies and relocated to
Burlington, Massachusetts Burlington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 26,377 at the 2020 census. History It is believed that Burlington takes its name from the English town of Bridlington, Yorkshire, but this has never b ...
. They continued to sell laser printers until 2015, at which point the company was disestablished.


Employees

* Elizabeth (Betty) Ryan *
Lucy Gilbert Lucy Gilbert is an American computer programmer and video game developer. She worked for Atari, Inc. via General Computer Corporation and developed computer graphics software for Autographix. Education Gilbert went to MIT and graduated with ...


References

{{reflist


External links


GCC corporate homepageVideo: "College Dreams- the story of General Computer" Play Value - ON Networks
Defunct computer companies of the United States Computer printer companies Computer peripheral companies Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Computer companies established in 1981 Computer companies disestablished in 2015 Electronics companies established in 1981 Electronics companies disestablished in 2015