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User:Bilofsky/sandbox

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The Software Toolworks (“Toolworks”) was an early personal computer software publishing company founded in 1980. Its initial thrust was to provide programming and user tools[1] for tiny Heathkit microcomputers[2], similar to those available on larger UNIX systems. Toolworks went on to create dozens of titles including perennial best sellers Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and The Chessmaster. In 1994 it adopted the name of Mindscape[3], a company which it had acquired in 1990. For its subsequent history see Mindscape.

Toolworks began in February 1980 in the converted garage[4] of Walt Bilofsky in Sherman Oaks, California. Bilofsky had written or adapted several pieces of software for the Heathkit H89 computer. When he couldn’t convince the Heath Company to market them, he offered the programs for sale in a hobbyist newsletter[5], and the business grew. The name “The Software Toolworks” was first used in July 1980[6]. Originally its software was restricted to the Heath operating system HDOS, but expanded in January 1981 to support Heath and generic CP/M[7], and by 1982 the Osborne 1 computer.

File:MYCHESS software, cover, published by The Software Toolworks c. 1980.jpg
MYCHESS, written by Dave Kittinger, won the Best Microcomputer title at the 1980 World Microcomputer Chess Championship[8]

Early products included several programs by Bilofsky, as well as his adaptations and extensions of Ron Cain’s Small C (“C/80”) and Tom Crosley’s full-screen Programma Improved Editor (“PIE”) whose design was in turn based on “ned”, the Rand Editor for UNIX[9], which Bilofsky designed and wrote at The Rand Corporation in 1974. Dave Kittinger[10] contributed MYCHESS. James Gillogly wrote a RUNOFF-style text formatting program program called TEXT. The spreadsheet program ZENCALC[11] was the first published software by Robert Wesson[12] who went on to found Knowledge Engineering (the Zen and Perfect productivity series) and a number of other successful ventures.

In 1981 Toolworks published a version of ELIZA[1][13], the early AI conversation simulator written at M.I.T. by Joseph Weizenbaum. The product ran from the original ELIZA script, which the user was able to modify. The script was originally published in Weizenbaum's article[14] in the Journal of the ACM, which then owned the copyright. Having paid ACM (not Weizenbaum) $75 for unlimited reproduction rights, Toolworks included the entire ACM article in the ELIZA user's manual.

In 1982 Jim Gillogly ported the UNIX version of the game Adventure, originally written by Will Crowther and expanded by Don Woods, to HDOS and CP/M[15]. Bilofsky, who had worked with Crowther at Bolt Beranek and Newman in the early 1970s, obtained their endorsements in return for a modest royalty.[16] This was the only payment Crowther and Woods ever received for founding an entire genre of computer games. The product was called The Original Adventure. On completing the game, the user received a code which they could submit to Toolworks to receive a Certificate of Wizardness bearing Crowther’s and Woods’ (facsimile) signatures[15].

In October 1986 show business personality Les Crane’s company Software Country merged into Toolworks[17], then owned by Bilofsky and Joe Abrams, with Crane as Chairman.

Software Country was founded by Crane in 1983 on his dining room table[18]. After a long broadcasting career and a Grammy award, Crane had decided that software was going to become the new show business. Software Country published two products, the I Ching and Software Golden Oldies Vol. I[18], which consisted of Pong, Life, Eliza and The Original Adventure, the latter two licensed from Toolworks[17].

In 1986, Toolworks began developing Chessmaster 2000, originally intended to be marketed by Software Country, and very early versions of the program were published under that label[19]. By then discussions to merge the two companies were well underway, concluding in October,[17] and Chessmaster took on the Toolworks label. The following month Chessmaster won the PC division of the U.S. Open Computer Chess Championship in Mobile, AL.

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing was conceived by Norm Worthington, who produced it for the IBM PC in September 1987. It was written by Worthington, Bilofsky and Mike Duffy ("Three guys, three computers, three beds, in four months"[20]). Although many believed that Mavis was a real person[20], Crane had created her to personalize the program. Having a black woman on the cover created some marketing issues at first[20], but the benefits were far greater.

On the strength of Chessmaster and Mavis, The Software Toolworks was able to become a public company[21] (NASDAQ: TWRX).

As a public company, Toolworks was in a position to acquire other companies, including:

  • Intellicreations (Bruce Lee and The Hunt for Red October[22]), November 1988
  • DS Technologies (March 1989)
  • Mindscape (1990)
  • SSI (1993)

In 1990 Toolworks acquired Mindscape, primarily for the Nintendo license.[23] Mindscape’s US operations were absorbed into Toolworks, retaining only a handful of Mindscape employees. Mindscape continued to operate in the UK and Australia as a product line of Toolworks.

The combined company held one last Summer Consumer Electronics Show party where Dudley Moore introduced the Miracle Piano Teaching System, an electronic learning system for the piano. However, Toolworks over-ordered the piano hardware and with sales impacted by the Gulf War recession was stuck with a large inventory. NPR personality Noah Adams began his memoir, Piano Lessons,[24] with his first lessons on the Miracle.[25]

In 1992 Toolworks published the isometric fantasy role-playing game Legend (known as The Four Crystals of Trazere in the United States) for MS-DOS, Amiga and Atari ST. Following some success worldwide, a sequel Worlds of Legend: Son of the Empire was released for MS-DOS and Amiga in 1993.

In 1993, Toolworks developed Wing Commander for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System under the Mindscape brand in conjunction with Origin Systems.

In May 1994 Toolworks was purchased by Pearson PLC for $503 million[26]. That October it adopted the name Mindscape[3], which see for its subsequent history.

  1. ^ a b O'Reilly, Richard. "Candy and Compilers Go Together" (PDF). Los Angeles Times (November 25, 1984).
  2. ^ For example, the Heathkit H89/Zenith Z-89 computer had a 2 MHz 8-bit CPU, 16k (kilobytes) of RAM expandable to 48k, and a single 90k floppy disk drive.
  3. ^ a b "Top of Mind". Billboard (12 November 1994): 90.
  4. ^ T. R. Reid. "Software Made Less Hard" (PDF). Washington Post (August 6, 1984): 23–24.
  5. ^ "BUSS Newsletter #21, January 1980" (PDF). p. 2.
  6. ^ "BUSS Newsletter #24, July 1980" (PDF). p. 8.
  7. ^ "BUSS Newsletter #31, Jan. 1981" (PDF). p. 7.
  8. ^ "1980 World Microcomputer Chess Championship". Retrieved 21 September 2016.
  9. ^ The CRT Text Editor NED, RAND Corporation report R-2176-ARPA
  10. ^ "Chess Programming Wiki". Retrieved 9 September 2016.
  11. ^ Fennema, Roger. "ZenCalc, spreadsheet for Heath/Zenith Computers". InfoWorld (October 4, 1982): 38–41.
  12. ^ "Wesson Systems, Inc. website". Wesson Systems Inc. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
  13. ^ Bilofsky, Walt (September 1981). Eliza User's Manual (PDF).
  14. ^ Weizenbaum, Joseph. "ELIZA - A Computer Program for the Study of Natural Language Communication Between Man and Machine". Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery. Volume 9 Number 1 (January 1966): 36–45. {{cite journal}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
  15. ^ a b Adams, Rick. "A History of 'Adventure'".
  16. ^ Jerz, Dennis (June 2000). "Colossal Cave Adventure". Jerz's Literary Weblog. Retrieved 18 September 2016.
  17. ^ a b c "Software Toolworks annual report, March 1989" (PDF). p. 4.
  18. ^ a b "Les Crane, Once a Rival to Johnny Carson, Is a Hit in Software". Los Angeles Times. April 21, 1987. Retrieved 18 September 2016.
  19. ^ "Software Country Presents: The Chessmaster 2000". The Spacious Mind. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  20. ^ a b c Biersdorfer, J. D. "Next They'll Say Betty Crocker Isn't Real, Either". New York Times (31 December 1998).
  21. ^ "From TV Personality to Software Developer: The Les Crane Story". InfoWorld (29 February 1988). InfoWorld Media Group, Inc: 38. ISSN 0199-6649.
  22. ^ "Two Simulations Bring Tom Clancy's Submarine Warfare Epics to the PC". PC Magazine (31 October 1989): 439. Retrieved 21 September 2016.
  23. ^ "Software Toolworks Acquires Mindscape". Computer Gaming World. January 1990. p. 64. Retrieved 15 November 2013.
  24. ^ Adams, Noah (1997). Piano Lessons: Music, Love, and True Adventures. ISBN 0-385-31821-9.
  25. ^ "Noah Adams' keys to happiness". USA Today (2 December 1999).
  26. ^ "London Publisher Buys Software Toolworks". Los Angeles Times (1 April 1994).
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