John Draper - Software Developer

Software Developer

Draper wrote EasyWriter, the first word processor for the Apple II, in 1978. According to The Wall Street Journal, he hand-wrote the code while serving nights in the Alameda County Jail, then entered the code later into a computer.

Draper's personal website furnishes a more detailed version of the coding of EasyWriter. Draper was in prison, in California, at the time, but under a "work furlough" program. This meant that while he had to spend every night in prison, he spent each day working a regular job outside prison. This job was at Receiving Studios, a small band practice studio, and while there he had access to a computer, where he coded EasyWriter. He did take copies of the code "home" to prison overnight to work on it.

Draper later ported EasyWriter to the IBM PC, beating Bill Gates on the bid for the IBM contract. Draper's company, Capn' Software, posted less than $1 million revenue over six years, and he subsequently sued his software's distributor, Bill Baker, over an unauthorized version of EasyWriter that Baker released without Draper's permission – they settled out of court.

Shortly after Apple released Macintosh he taught an online course in Mac programming. Currently he writes computer security software, is a senior developer of KanTalk!, VoIP client built around singer and actress Lola Blanc (born Kandice Melonakos), and hosts an internet TV show, Crunch TV.

From 2005 to 2010, Draper was the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) for media delivery company En2go, that delivers music, video and other digital content to desktops.

In 2011 Draper joined the group Canadian Pirates Inc with longtime friend (Rod Thacker).

Draper's software development history includes:

  • The Motorola 6800 Cross Assembler for CallComputer (1974)
  • The Charlie Board (1977)
  • Forth 1.7 for the Apple II (1978)
  • EasyWriter© (1980)
  • Advanced 3-D Graphic Design Systems for Autodesk(1986–89)
  • Website Development (1994 to present)
  • The Crunchbox Firewall (CTO of ShopIp 1999–2004)
  • VOIP application for OnInstant (2005)
  • The Channel Manager for the Flyxo Media System (CTO of En2Go 2005–10)

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