Comtal

File:Hughes Aircraft Company employees behind graphics display.jpg observing an image on a Comtal image processor, circa 1979]]

Comtal Corporation was founded in the early 1970s in Pasadena, California. The foundation for the company's first products was based on research conducted on digital image processing by NASA in the 1960s at the Stennis Space Center (then known as the Mississippi Test Facility).{{sfn|Staff writer|1993|p=93}} This research yielded the Spectravision system, a digital image display manufactured by Aerojet in the late 1960s. Team members on the Spectragraph project founded Comtal in 1971 or 1972. Although a small operation, the company aggressively marketed its digital image displays through the mid-1970s, by which point Aerojet's Spectragraph system was extinct.{{sfn|Patterson|1976|p=21}}

Comtal's first commercial product, the Comtal 5000 Series, was offered as a standalone desk console or a peripheral unit to a minicomputer. The 5000 Series comprised a specialized cathode-ray tube monitor and the processor, which could render 24-bit color at a resolution of 512×512, progressive scan. The 5000 Series was released in January 1974.{{sfn|Staff writer|1974a|p=24}} Two months later, Comtal followed up with the 8000 Series, which offered the same color depth and resolution but increased the processing speed by 50 percent, improved the user interface, added the ability to switch from grayscale to color display on the fly, and enlarged the size of the display.{{sfn|Staff writer|1974b|p=39}} In May 1974, the company unveiled the 8300 Series, which allowed the RGB channels to be imported and manipulated separately while adding the ability for a grayscale image to be rendered in false color.{{sfn|Staff writer|1974c|p=22}} Comtal's 1977 Vision One system was dubbed by Business Screen magazine as "one of the most significant breakthroughs in the industry" due to its ability to load custom application software, negating the need for a mainframe or minicomputer. The Vision One offered either a charge-coupled device or 16-bit RAM as memory.{{sfn|Staff writer|1977|p=S-21}}

NASA employed Comtal's processors to process the first clear images from the surface of Mars as broadcast by the Viking program's space probes in 1976.{{sfn|Staff writer|1993|p=93}} NASA also used Comtal's processors to process transmissions of Jupiter by Voyager 2 in 1977.{{sfn|Staff writer|1993|p=93}} NASA previously commissioned Comtal in 1974 for the creation of the Portable Image Display Systems (PIDS)—an image processor designed for training geologists using sample Landsat satellite imagery as captured by MSS sensors—at the Stennis Space Center's Earth Resources Laboratory.{{sfn|Whitley|1975|pp=1356–1357}}

The company was acquired by 3M in 1980, after which it became known as 3M/Comtal, still based in Pasadena.{{sfnm|1a1=Barnfather|1y=1982|1p=114|2a1=Lewell|2y=1985|2p=69}}

• Peggy Cherng, technical engineer and software department manager from 1975–1982, later co-founder of Panda Express{{sfn|Staff writer|2016}}

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• {{cite journal | last=Barnfather | first=Maurice | date=March 1, 1982 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UvodAQAAMAAJ | title=Can 3M Find Happiness in the 1980s? | work=Forbes | pages=113–116 | via=Google Books}}
• {{cite book | last=Lewell | first=John | date=1985 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tT1NAAAAYAAJ | title=A–Z Guide to Computer Graphics | publisher=McGraw-Hill | isbn=9780070374645 | via=Google Books}}
• {{cite book | last=Patterson | first=C. L. | date=June 1976 | url=https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA036338/page/n28/ | title=Survey of Digital Image Display Systems | publisher=Defense Technical Information Center | via=the Internet Archive}}
• {{cite journal | last=Staff writer | date=February 1974 | url=https://archive.org/details/1974-02-sid-journal/page/n12/ | title=Digital Image Display | journal=SID Journal | publisher=Society for Information Display | volume=11 | issue=1 | page=24 | via=the Internet Archive | ref={{sfnRef|Staff writer|1974a}} }}
• {{cite journal | last=Staff writer | date=April 1974 | url=https://archive.org/details/1974-04-sid-journal/page/34/ | title=New Comtal Display | journal=SID Journal | publisher=Society for Information Display | volume=11 | issue=2 | page=39 | via=the Internet Archive | ref={{sfnRef|Staff writer|1974b}} }}
• {{cite journal | last=Staff writer | date=August 1974 | url=https://archive.org/details/1974-08-sid-journal/page/n11/ | title=Exhibits Seen | journal=SID Journal | publisher=Society for Information Display | volume=11 | issue=4 | page=22 | via=the Internet Archive | ref={{sfnRef|Staff writer|1974c}} }}
• {{cite journal | last=Staff writer | date=March 1977 | url=https://archive.org/details/sim_business-and-home-tv-screen_1977-03/page/n20/ | title=Comtal Announces Stand Alone Image Processing System | journal=Business Screen | publisher=Back Stage/Business Screen | via=the Internet Archive | page=S-21}}
• {{cite journal | last=Staff writer | date=1993 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MSAmvfjMhtsC&pg=PA93 | title=Digital Image Processing | journal=Spinoff | publisher=National Aeronautics and Space Administration | volume=992 | issue=2 | page=93 | via=Google Books}}
• {{cite journal | last=Staff writer | date=March 6, 2013 | url=https://www.machinedesign.com/archive/article/21819609/looking-back-3072013 | title=30 Years Ago—1983 | journal=Machine Design | publisher=Penton Media | volume=85 | issue=3 | page=28}}
• {{cite journal | last=Staff writer | date=September 2016 | url=https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-how-did-i-get-here/peggy-cherng.html | title=How Did I Get Here?: Peggy Cherng | journal=Bloomberg Businessweek | publisher=Bloomberg L.P. | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160922141503/https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-how-did-i-get-here/peggy-cherng.html | archivedate=September 22, 2016}}
• {{cite journal | last=Whitley | first=Sidney L. | date=June 1975 | url=https://archive.org/details/NASA_NTRS_Archive_19760010413/page/1355/ | title=Low-Cost Data Analysis Systems for Processing Multispectral Scanner Data | journal=NASA Earth Resources Survey Symposium | publisher=National Aeronautics and Space Administration | volume=I-B | pages=1355–1375 | via=the Internet Archive}}

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Category:1971 establishments in California

Category:1980 mergers and acquisitions

Category:3M

Category:Companies based in Pasadena, California

Category:Computer companies established in 1971

Category:Defunct computer companies based in California

Category:Defunct computer companies of the United States

Category:Defunct computer hardware companies

Category:Digital imaging

Category:1980 disestablishments in California