The firm was founded as Free Radical Softward in July 1985 by Richard Ditton, a NASA software engineer, and Elaine Hodgson, a biochemist. The company was a software design gaming firm working for Semaphore Systems, developing the title "Championship Wrestling" for Epyx, and porting "Winter Games" to Amiga and Atari ST, before being renamed as Incredible Technologies. The company started in the basement of the owners' home and developed a variety of work-for-hire entertainment projects, including pinball hardware and game programming for Data East. In its early years, IT struggled to maintain profitability, with no hit products.