Evans & Sutherland history

At its base in an old Army barracks at the University of Utah, E&S produced in 1969 its first product, LDS (Line Drawing System) 1.

Then, in the mid-1970’s, E&S established a partnership with Rediffusion, a British simulation company, that gave E&S exclusive rights to provide visual systems for Rediffusion’s commercial flight training simulators.

By 1972 the firm had developed LDS 2 and other new products but had not generated any profits.

Since 1973, E&S and Rediffusion jointly had sold over 400 simulator systems to civil airlines worldwide.

NOVOVIEW products brought E&S its first profits in 1974 and continued success as the decade progressed.

By 1977, the SP1, NOVOVIEW's successor, was certified by the Federal Aviation Administration and brought in more sales to E&S than all its other simulators combined.

E&S continued to grow after it became a public firm in 1978.

So E&S in June 1986 created three formal company divisions.

To finance such expanding operations, E&S in 1987 offered investors convertible debentures worth $56 million.

In 1988 E&S also renamed the CT and SP product lines to use the ESIG (Evans & Sutherland Image Generator) prefix.

In 1989, after being diagnosed with a neurological condition, David Evans retired from his position as president and CEO, while remaining company chairman.

In November 1993, E&S and Iwerks Entertainment introduced their jointly produced "Virtual Adventure," a location based system used at theme parks.

In January 1994 E&S announced that 170 workers would lose their positions, and the following January the firm reduced its numbers by another 200.

The following year, 1995, the corporation sold two of its CAD/CAM products called CDRS (Conceptual Design and Rendering System) and 3D Paint.

The firm estimated that this contract, the largest in its history, could generate about $70 million in revenues over the next five years. For example, in August 1996 the firm announced that the United States Air Force had awarded it a contract to provide upgrades on training systems for KC-135 and KC-10 pilots.

President/CEO Oyler said in the February 2, 1997, issue of Salt Lake City's Deseret News, "What excites me is the chance to develop at the high end and migrate down to the desktop.

After threatening several companies with legal action regarding patent infringement in the area of 3D graphics, E&S did a turnaround in 2001 and licensed its patents (it held around 79 such patents) to Nvidia.