FRISCO TECH

The Gulch originally sprouted as a by-product of Silicon Valley techies rubbing up against San Francisco's urban art crowd, taking root around South Park because of the neighborhood's inexpensive warehouse spaces. As the cyberset settled into the community, cafes, pool halls, bistros, and art galleries appeared, providing the area with the perfect settings for the most visible types in the Gulch: the poseurs and schmoozers who chipped out a verifiable scene around South Park. But the real lifeblood of the Gulch has always been the developers, those foot soldiers of the digital revolution. "We started three years ago in my living room with three people and computers set up on the kitchen table," says Drew Huffman, 34, president and founder of Drew Pictures. Huffman began the business with a rough idea for a product and $200,000, invested by five friends. The fruit of the Huffman team's labors was Iron Helix, a fast-paced sci-fi game released in 1992 that became one of the CD-ROM industry's early hits. Profits from the game-about $2 million-allowed Drew Pictures to move out of Huffman's house and into a spacious loft in the Gulch, and to expand its staff to 19 full-timers. Today, Huffman spends much of his time handling management duties that seem far removed from the days of tooling around in his kitchen. "You go from eating poorly to losing your appetite," says Huffman. In many ways, the adjustments Drew Pictures had to make mirror the growing pains of this nascent industry. "I was in a garage band for a long time," says Sparks, who, with his wife, Maura, 33, and a high school friend, Kent Carmical, 32, founded an interactive media company called Pop Rocket in 1991. "And this"-he sweeps his arm around his computer- equipment-cluttered basement-"would be similar, except the band doesn't worry about marketing, distribution, or any of these nuts-and-bolts business issues." For the last three years, Sparks has spent most of his days and nights on the bottom floor of his three-story row house in Haight-Ashbury, working on a CD-ROM called Total Distortion, which he describes as a "music-video adventure game." His work space is a cramped, sunless cave filled with musical keyboards, the constant low thrum of computer machinery, and the cloying scent of clove cigarettes. "A lot of people have tried to paint us as new bohemians," says Sparks. "They think we're doing this because we're so wild and asymmetrical. The truth is we work 17 hours a day, seven days a week. We make serious business deals. We do it because we believe this industry could mean something." Sparks, who learned how to program by sitting cross-legged on the floor of a neighborhood bookstore and devouring computer journals, has kept his operation going by arranging a variety of distribution and venture capital deals. That has allowed him to hire a sales and marketing staff, rent office space down the street-although Sparks prefers to continue working in his basement-and pay himself a salary. "But even without the money, I can't imagine ever doing anything else," he says. "I come from a small town in Southern California where everyone grew up and got oil jobs. This stuff-it's like a fantasy." Total Distortion's outlook seems bright. The program will ship in June, and early reviews are favorable. Word of mouth has reached far: Sparks has demonstrated the game for such curious celebs as Dan Aykroyd and Francis Ford Coppola. He's even entertained Robert De Niro in his crowded basement. "Everyone wants to stop here," Sparks says. "I guess we're on the map."