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 ...

'' (1983) as well as designing the hardware for the

Atari 7800 The Atari 7800 ProSystem, or simply the Atari 7800, is a home video game console officially released by Atari Corporation in 1986 as the successor to both the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200. It can run almost all Atari 2600 cartridges, making it one o ...

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 ''Missile Command'' is a 1980 shoot 'em up arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. and licensed to Sega for Japanese and European releases. It was designed by Dave Theurer, who also designed Atari's vector graphics game '' Temp ...

''. 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 ''

''; 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 ''

'', ''

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 The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocessor- ...

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 The Atari 5200 SuperSystem or simply Atari 5200 is a home video game console introduced in 1982 by Atari, Inc. as a higher-end complement for the popular Atari Video Computer System. The VCS was renamed to the Atari 2600 at the time of the 5200' ...

cartridges; and developed the chip design for the

, 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 Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper and plastic substrates. Inkjet printers were the most commonly used type of printer in 2008, and range from small inexpensi ...

, and the Personal Laser Printer (the first

QuickDraw A quickdraw (also known as an extender) is a piece of climbing equipment used by rock and ice climbers to allow the climbing rope to run freely through protection such as a bolt anchors or other traditional gear while leading. A quickdraw ...

laser printer Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively-charged cylinder called a "drum" to d ...

). 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, 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 format (or disk file system) created by Apple Computer for storing files on 400K floppy disks. MFS was introduced with the original Apple Macintosh computer in January 1984. MFS is notable both for ...

, 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 ''MacTech'' is the journal of Apple technology, a monthly magazine for consultants, IT Pros, system administrators, software developers, and other technical users of the Apple Macintosh line of computers. The magazine was called "MacTech" for it ...

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 The Macintosh Plus computer is the third model in the Macintosh line, introduced on January 16, 1986, two years after the original Macintosh and a little more than a year after the Macintosh 512K, with a price tag of US$2,599. As an evolutiona ...

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

s until 2015, at which point the company was disestablished.

Employees

* Elizabeth (Betty) Ryan * Lucy Gilbert

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