Cardinal Technologies was founded in February 1987 by Harold Krall and seven other ex-employees of the RCA Corporation's New Products Division research and development office and factory in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

In 1987, Krall and several of his colleagues from RCA bartered for the acquisition of the Lancaster plant, its equipment, and associated liabilities from General Electric and Thomson S.A. for $4 million.

The colleagues incorporated Cardinal Technologies from this plant, which was to be their break into the fast-growing personal computer market of the late 1980s, which GE and RCA had largely ignored.

It also allowed for computers to import photographs from Video Floppy disks taken by early electronic cameras, such as that Fujifilm had produced in the 1980s and 1990s.

[10][11] Between February and March 1994, Kroll and two other co-founders were ousted from the board of directors and 31 management and factory employees were laid off, shortly after the company posted another loss for 1993.