Canyon State Systems Sedona AZ, 86336 email:

Version 1 of CompuShow, a "graphic display utility for IBM compatible computers" was released in July, 1987, within weeks of the announcement of the "new" GIF graphic format developed by CompuServe. Posted in what was then known as PICS ("The Picture Support Forum") on CompuServe, the first version of CompuShow had an enthusiastic reception, accompanied by a flood of suggestions for additional features.

As originally designed, CompuShow displayed GIF, MacPaint, and CompuServe "RLE" graphics (which GIF was designed to replace), on CGA and EGA graphic adapters. In the early days, the constant challenge was to add support for additional graphic formats, new video display adapters, and the latest printers. In addition to the hardware manufacturers, CompuShow users were themselves a valuable source of information, supplying technical programming information for new devices almost as soon as they hit the store shelves. With such technical information as well as suggestions for enhancements to the program, we were able to add over a dozen of the most popular graphic file formats, and to support the latest, state-of-the-art video and printer hardware.

Distributed as ShareWare from the beginning, each new revision of CompuShow was quickly downloaded and re-distributed to both local and commercial bulletin board systems and throughout the growing Internet community. Published on numerous "ShareWare disks", demonstrated and discussed in computer user groups, CompuShow gained a reputation as THE graphic utility for DOS-based computers, due to its support for virtually every kind of video card and printer that could be plugged into a PC.

The ranks of registered users grew to include not only individual PC owners, but museums, colleges, universities, newspapers, TV stations, police departments, photographers, engineers, doctors, lawyers, architects, and other professionals throughout the United States, Canada and over 50 other foreign countries.

In July 1992, Canyon State Systems was pleased to announce that CompuShow had been used by the crew of the Space Shuttle during mission STS-50.

As interest shifted from DOS to Windows programs, Canyon State Systems applied its energies to developing a Windows application with the same ease of use and intuitive design that made its DOS programs so popular. CompuShow for Windows version 1 was released in September, 1996.

In response to the overwhelming popularity of Windows 95, Canyon State Systems began a thorough modernization and extensive redesign effort, leading up to the release of CompuShow 32 for Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP in December, 1998.

Version History