Applicon

Applicon, Incorporated

Company type	Private
Industry	Computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM)
Founded	1969 in Bedford, Massachusetts, United States
Founder	Fontaine Richardson, Gary Hornbuckle, Richard N. Spann, Harry Lee
Defunct	1989
Fate	Acquired by Schlumberger in 1980; later ownership transferred to Gore Enterprises and then UGS Corp.
Headquarters	Burlington, Massachusetts (main offices and research facilities) , United States
Area served	Global
Key people	Gary Hornbuckle (President until 1980), Fontaine Richardson
Products	CAD/CAM systems, Bravo! software ("Librarian"), Mechanical Design Assistant

Applicon, Incorporated was among the pioneers in the development of Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) technologies. Established in 1969 in Bedford, Massachusetts by four researchers from MIT Lincoln Laboratory—Fontaine Richardson (Ph.D. University of Illinois), Gary Hornbuckle (Ph.D. UC Berkeley), Richard N. Spann, and Harry Lee (both MIT alumni)—the firm rapidly gained a foothold in the CAD/CAM industry.

Gary Hornbuckle held the position of Applicon's President until the company was acquired by Schlumberger in 1980, after which both Richardson and Hornbuckle exited the business. At that time, Applicon’s annual revenue exceeded $100 million. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, its main offices and research facilities were located in Burlington, Massachusetts, while manufacturing operations were conducted in Billerica, Massachusetts.

In 1986, Schlumberger combined Applicon with Manufacturing Data Systems, Inc. (MDSI), another recent acquisition, creating the Schlumberger CAD/CAM division headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This division was sold to Gore Enterprises in 1993; Gore later transferred ownership to UGS Corp. in 1999—a company spun off from Electronic Data Systems—which eventually became part of Siemens AG.

Early systems

During the early 1970s, Applicon's products ran on DEC PDP-11 minicomputer platforms. The company adapted DEC’s predominantly single-user operating system to develop one of the earliest multi-user operating environments, which influenced DEC’s creation of RSTS-11 aimed at educational users.

A notable advancement was the use of command input through drawn character recognition (refer to Patent 4560830). Initial CAD systems employed a stylus and a tablet calibrated directly to screen corners, enabling users to train the software to interpret hand-drawn symbols as commands. For instance, sketching an alpha symbol could trigger an "execute" function, while combinations such as two dots indicated a "move relative" command. To minimize errors, multiple variants of each symbol were recognized; however, misinterpretations due to user sketches occasionally caused unintended commands. This was further complicated by numerous user-defined commands that often lacked comprehensive documentation.

Applicon's software was fully developed using DEC assembler language. A standard configuration with four workstations typically contained about 64K words of memory (each word being 16 bits), with program code managed through memory overlay methods. Up until around 1979, systems utilized Magnetic core memory. Workstations featured storage tube displays, and their hard drives used removable platters roughly the size of washing machines. The cost for a four-workstation system during the 1970s was approximately $400,000, including a pen plotter valued near $60,000 (model Xynetics). Due to these substantial expenses, only large corporations could invest in CAD technology and often ran their systems continuously across three shifts.

By the mid to late 1970s, Applicon’s systems supported designs for LSI and later VLSI circuits—early forms of highly integrated chips—as well as projects in mechanical and electrical engineering such as power plant design.

Applicon’s Bravo! software is believed to be among the first integrated PDM solutions, known as the "Librarian." It enabled file check-out processes and referencing within assemblies while automatically updating files upon their return to the library.

The company's decline culminated in 1989 with a partnership involving PTC, through which Applicon sold Mechanical Design Assistant. This product was adopted by major clients including Otis elevator and StorageTek, eventually evolving into PTC's flagship software Pro/Engineer.

External links

• Analysis of Bravo CAD/CAM