Editing Alan Cooper (software designer) (section)

=== Early life ===
Alan Cooper grew up in [[Marin County, California]], United States, where he attended the [[College of Marin]], studying [[architecture]]. He learned programming and took on contract programming jobs to pay for college.<ref>Lohr, Steve (2001) Go To: The Story of the Math Majors, Bridge Players, Engineers, Chess Wizards, Maverick Scientists and Iconoclasts--The Programmers Who Created the Software Revolution. Basic Books. {{ISBN|0-465-04226-0}}, {{ISBN|978-0-465-04226-5}}, pp.94</ref>

In 1975, soon after he left college and as the first [[microcomputers]] became available, Alan Cooper founded his first company, Structured Systems Group (SSG), in [[Oakland, California]], which became one of the first microcomputer software companies.<ref>[[Paul Freiberger|Freiberger, Paul]] and [[Michael Swaine (technical author)|Swaine, Michael]] (1984). Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer. McGraw-Hill. {{ISBN|0-07-135892-7}}, {{ISBN|978-0-07-135892-7}} pp. 184</ref> SSG's software accounting product, General Ledger, was sold through ads in popular magazines such as ''[[Byte (magazine)|Byte]]'' and ''Interface Age''. This software was, according to the historical account in Fire in the Valley (by [[Paul Freiberger]] and [[Michael Swaine (technical author)|Michael Swaine]]), “probably the first serious business software for microcomputers.<ref>Freiberger and Swaine, pp.381</ref>”  It was both the start of Cooper's career as a software author and the beginning of the microcomputer software business. Ultimately, Cooper developed a dozen original products at Structured Systems Group<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/725891/Structured-Systems-Group|title=Structured Systems Group - American company|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]}}</ref> before he sold his interest in the company in 1980.

Early on, Cooper worked with [[Gordon Eubanks]] to develop, debug, document, and publish his business programming language, [[CBASIC]], an early competitor to [[Bill Gates|Bill Gates']] and [[Paul Allen|Paul Allen's]] [[Microsoft BASIC]].<ref>Freiberger and Swaine, pp. 183</ref>  Eubanks wrote CBASIC’s precursor, [[BASIC-E]] as a student project while at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California with professor [[Gary Kildall]].<ref>Dr. Dobb's Journal 1997</ref> When Eubanks left the Navy, he joined Kildall’s successful operating system company, [[Digital Research|Digital Research, Inc.]], in Monterey. Soon thereafter, Eubanks and Kildall invited Cooper to join them at Digital Research as one of four founders of their research and development department.<ref>Freiberger and Swaine, pp.384</ref> After two years at DRI, Cooper departed to develop desktop application software by himself.

During the 1980s, Alan Cooper authored several business applications including ''Microphone II'' for Windows and an early, critical-path project management program called ''SuperProject''. Cooper sold SuperProject to [[Computer Associates]] in 1984, where it achieved success in the business-to-business marketplace.<ref>Cooper, Alan (1998 and 2004). The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity. Sams - Pearson Education. {{ISBN|0-672-32614-0}}, {{ISBN|978-0-672-32614-1}}, pp. inside dust jacket</ref>