Intelligent Systems Corporation (ISC) was an American technology company that sold portable computers, video terminals, expansion cards, and other peripherals through a variety of manufacturing subsidiaries. Founded in 1973, the company restructured as a master limited partnership in 1987, becoming Intelligent Systems Master Limited Partnership.
Notable subsidiaries included Datavue Corporation, which manufactured portable computers; Quadram Corporation, which manufactured expansion cards, mostly for the IBM PC, including memory and video cards (Quadram Quadcolor I & II); Princeton Graphics Systems, a maker of computer monitors; Intecolor Corporation, which took over Intelligent Systems's terminal manufacturing operations; and more.
In the 1990s, Intelligent Systems pivoted into providing venture capital for start-up technology firms, changing its name back to Intelligent Systems Corporation. In 2021, the company changed its name to CoreCard Corporation, following another pivot to fintech.
History
Intecolor and Compucolor (1973–1980)
Intelligent Systems Corporation was founded in 1973 by Terry Hughey and Charles Muench of Norcross, Georgia. Muench was an engineer who founded Integrated Systems, a company that manufactured remote alarm systems and control equipment for the electric power industry; Muench hired Hughey to be director of research and development at the company. After several profitable years, in 1972 Muench sold the company to the Esterline Corporation and took a brief sabbatical. In 1973, the two decided to found Intelligent Systems as their break into the video terminal industry, which had seen soaring profits in the early 1970s as time-shared mainframe computers became more accessible to businesses who needed number-crunching power. After three years of development, in February 1976 the company introduced the Intecolor 8001, a kit for a smart terminal powered by an Intel 8080 microprocessor and featuring 4 MB of RAM, driving the display capable of rendering 80 columns by 25 rows of text. In December 1976, the company sold the Compucolor 8001, an expanded kit of the Intecolor 8001 that turned it into a full-fledged microcomputer, adding 8 KB of RAM, a ROM with Microsoft BASIC, and a data tape reader that repurposed 8-track tapes commonly reserved for music. It was the first microcomputer kit with an integrated keyboard and monitor capable of color graphics output.
In October 1976, Muench laid off Hughey with severance so that the latter could pursue the high-end graphics market under his start-up, Chromatics Inc. Meanwhile Muench was busy leading a team behind a low-cost successor to the Compucolor 8001. Released as the CompuColor II in 1978, this incarnation of the computer replaced the wear-prone 8-track tapes with floppy diskettes, shrunk the monitor down to a 13-inch-diagonal unit, and completely eliminated the terminal-centric features. While he was able to drive to cost down to a certain point, for a unit with an adequate amount of RAM in 1978 it was still too costly for the average consumer and was pulled off the market in 1980. Intelligent Systems would then refocus on designing high-end terminals for the enterprise world. Intelligent Systems' terminal-manufacturing operations were later folded into Intecolor Corporation, an independently run subsidiary.
Growing empire (1983–1990)
In 1983, Intelligent Systems purchased Quadram Corporation, a start-up company that manufactured expansion cards for personal computers. Quadram was founded J. Leland Strange, who stayed with Intelligent Systems, eventually becoming its CEO in 1988. Shortly after the Quadram purchase, it bought out Datavue Corporation, an early designer of portable computers. Intelligent Systems posted $90 million in sales in 1983, and in 1984, the company opened up Prints and Graphics, their marque for printers. In December 1985, the Quadram division bought a stake in Video-7 Inc., a computer graphics technology based in Milpitas, California. This joint venture bore the Quad EGA+ and the Vega Card, sold under the Quadram and Video-7 brands respectively; they were both EGA-compatible graphics cards that improved upon standard in a number of ways.
In May 1985, Management Science America sold their Peachtree Software division to Intelligent Systems for an undisclosed sum. Peachtree had developed and sold a popular line of accounting software for home and personal computer users.