Richard Shoup (programmer)

In 1973, while working as one of the first employees at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, he built SuperPaint, one of the first image editing programs.

[2][3] Future Pixar cofounder Alvy Ray Smith contributed to program development as an independent contractor.

Although he had been directly recruited by Robert Taylor following the collapse of the Berkeley Computer Corporation, Shoup's interests in video graphics and color, pixel-based imaging clashed with the office of the future research program cultivated by Taylor and Butler Lampson, ultimately precipitating his departure from Xerox.

From 2000 until his death, he was an associate at the Boundary Institute for the Study of Foundations, a nonprofit organization involved in research into physical sciences and parapsychology.

[1] An avid musician in his spare time, Shoup played jazz trombone for many years in various big bands throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.