The ClipMate Story
Is
That All?
As a computer science major (State University of New York at Potsdam) in
1987, Thornsoft founder Chris Thornton had an opportunity to sit down at
a Macintosh II for the first time. He had heard Mac proponents bragging
about something called "cut and paste", and wanted to see for himself.
Intuitively, Chris thought that he ought to be able to paste anything
that he had previously copied. But there didn't seem to be any way to do
that. So he asked his girlfriend Brenda (also a Comp Sci major), who
thought that surely there must be a way, and she checked with the
professor. None of us could figure it out! Well it turns out, the Mac
clipboard could hold only one item at a time. We were disappointed.
In 1989, Chris tried Windows 3.0, which also had cut 'n' paste. Still,
the clipboard was limited to one item. As a mainframe programmer at a
large corporation, Chris was concerned about the future need for
mainframe programmers, and decided to pursue his interest in PC
programming, and convinced his new wife Brenda (see above) that they
should sell their Mac that she won as a door prize, buy a PC from
Gateway 2000, and they could "get rich writing and selling video games".
Brenda reluctantly agreed. She really liked that Mac!
Eureka!
While vacationing in the green mountains of Vermont, Chris was reading
the Windows 3.0 API reference (don't we all?) and found some clipboard
routines that would, in theory, allow a program to be notified of
clipboard updates. Two days after arriving home, Chris had a working
prototype of the world's first "clipboard extender" for Windows.
Finally, the clipboard worked the way it should. Two months later, in
December 1991, ClipMate 1.0 was uploaded to CompuServe.
Wanna Bet?
Giving away a trial version in hopes that the user would send a check,
didn't seem like a very wise idea to Brenda, who had a background in PC
desktop support. She bet Chris that he'd be lucky to sell $100 worth of
ClipMate in a year. The bet was then revised to be $100/month, (ok, she
won the first month) but by March '92, the bet was determined to have
been "100 copies in a year". Didn't matter, she lost the bet.
For the record, Edward Folger of Vancouver BC, was the first to send us
a check.
ClipMate provided a nice "sideline" income for several years, eventually
allowing both Brenda and Chris to transition away from their "day jobs".
First part time, and then completely. Today, we're a full-time software
company with tens of thousands of users worldwide. We're right in that
"sweet spot" where we are doing well, but aren't so big that we can't
answer our own phone and e-mail.
Famous?
ClipMate has won the Shareware Industry Award for "best utility"
4
times, and has been featured in dozens of computer magazines, books, and
newspaper articles. Chris has served on the board of directors of the
Association of Shareware Professionals, and in July 2004, with Brenda
and daughter Carolyn watching, Chris was inducted into the Shareware
hall of fame, for contributions to the industry. Even with all of this,
Chris and Brenda usually are able to venture out into the community
(suburb of Rochester, NY, USA) without being "spotted". Chris is
occasionally mistaken for "the Winzip guy", as most of his "casual
Monday" through "casual Friday" wear features WinZip T-Shirts.
We're thankful to our users for supporting our efforts to bring you
great software. And Chris is additionally thankful for Brenda, who keeps
the business running, and has always been supportive.
Photo Links:
ClipMate
7.5 features both 32-bit and 64-bit ClipBar support in both Windows7
and Windows8 (and Windows 10!). It is a free update to all ClipMate v7 users.
Just install over your current 7.3, and you'll upgrade it
"in-place".
Users
of the WebRoot firewall will need to make an adjustment to the
WebRoot settings in order to allow ClipMate to capture clipboard
data from web browsers. Otherwise WebRoot will BLOCK such access! It
may also be causing WHITE SCREEN CAPTURES as it may be blocking the
PrintScreen key.
ClipMate
wins "
