Syndesis was founded in August 1987 by John Foust with the first release of InterChange for the Amiga. This version only converted 3D models between two formats, Sculpt 3D and VideoScape 3D.

His Terak computer was part of a special exhibition celebrating the 25th anniversary of the ACM SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference. Foust continues to write articles on 3D topics for magazines such as Digital Video, AV Video, and Byte, including one titled "3D Steps Forward."  In 1998, he gave a guest lecture at for the Computer Sciences Department at the University of Wisconsin -- Madison.  If you're curious, here's his resume.

In December 1992, Syndesis moved to offices in Jefferson, Wisconsin, centrally isolated halfway between Madison and Milwaukee. The Syndesis offices are located in a century-old "Cream City" brick building on the corner across from the courthouse.

Syndesis World
Headquarters

If you ever watched the television show "Picket Fences," then you'll have a good idea of life in Jefferson. As Mark Twain once said, truth is stranger than fiction - after all, fiction has to at least remain believable, as opposed to reality, which isn't bound by such constraints.

Jefferson is so small, it didn't get a McDonalds until October 1996. In 1992, it had only two stoplights, but today it has three. Jefferson is a very German city. It calls itself the "Gemuetlichkeit City," for the German word meaning both "friendliness" and "the bars open at 8 a.m." In the spring at the Post Office, you can hear the "peep peep" of mail-order baby chickens.

Jefferson was home to the people involved in the spring 1996 sweeps-week mini-series "Seduced by Madness: The Diane Borchardt Story" about the teacher who hired high-school students to kill her husband. Hints: the teacher was not as attractive as Ann-Margaret. She was actually a sub and a study hall supervisor, not a teacher. Jefferson isn't as photogenic or urban as Pasadena (where they filmed the mini-series).  If you plan to hire a killer, choose a 78-year-old man with a short memory and a terminal illness. The closest thing we have to "gangs" are farm-boys wearing the same John Deere caps and playing mailbox baseball. A certain Syndesis-related little boy finds pickup trucks almost as exciting as many of the locals.

Jefferson is also home to the first trans-gendered elected official in the country, a county supervisor elected once as a man, and re-elected as a woman. However, this same county board was not tolerant enough to rent office space to Planned Parenthood. Go figure.

We'll save for another time the stories of the transvestite shooting, the ostriches that got loose, mysterious hidden gang symbols (you can't see them, but they're still there), "Gemuetlichkeit Days", and the guy who claims to have seen a kangaroo in a field.

"Syndesis" is actually a word in the English language, but you'll only find it in unabridged dictionaries. It comes from the Greek words meaning "a binding together." We thought this made sense, given what InterChange did.

However, if you are ever asked to pick a name for a new company, make it two syllables and so easy to write that you don't have to spell it over the phone every time you say it for the rest of your natural life. The same is true of Internet domain names. "Threedee" is cute, but it's tough to spell over the phone.

For many years we pronounced "syndesis" somewhat incorrectly in order to make it easier for most people, saying "sin DEE sis" although the proper pronunciation is probably "SIN deh sis". After all, most people didn't take Latin, either, but Syndesis's founder was president of the Oconomowoc Senior High School Latin Club in 1979 and 1980, and "bam bas bat bimus bitis bunt" has still not left his brain.

Other "Syndesis"

There is a Syndesis Ltd. in Canada that makes high-speed network equipment and software. We have no association with them. Their web page is at www.syndesis.com.  There is a Syndesis Ltd. in Athens, Greece that makes fuzzy logic software.  There is an organization for engineering students at Purdue called "Syndesis". There is an architectural detailing company called Syndesis in San Diego. We may have adopted this company name after reading an article about their lightweight concrete furniture in an in-flight magazine.

The John Foust here is not the fly-fishing guy.