John Warnock and Charles Geschke founded Adobe in 1982 after leaving Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center.
Warnock and Geschke had worked at Xerox PARC, where they helped develop technologies for displaying and printing digital documents. They left after Xerox did not commercialize some of their ideas as they hoped. Adobe was named after Adobe Creek, which ran behind Warnock’s home in Los Altos, California.
The company’s first major product was PostScript, a page-description language introduced in 1984. PostScript became especially important in desktop publishing because it allowed computers and printers to represent text and graphics precisely. Apple adopted the technology for its LaserWriter printer, helping drive the desktop-publishing revolution.
Adobe later became associated with products such as Photoshop and Acrobat. Photoshop was created by Thomas and John Knoll and acquired by Adobe in 1988, so it was not founded by Warnock and Geschke themselves.