The Print Shop Club

The People Behind The Print Shop

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

MICROTIMES APRIL 1985

“Everybody has talent. We just decided to help foment the revolution by liberating people’s artistic imaginations. Our own brand of subversive software.” David Balsam.

“We have a lot of fun with all the ideas that go flying around here. It’s sort of like reaching a creative critical mass.” Martin Kahn.

The home computer market is an interesting thing to study.

The Contents of the Print Shop Box

Sun, 25 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A Tongue-In-Cheek Look Back at Broderbund’s ‘The Print Shop’

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In the early 1980s, if you wanted posters to advertise a yard sale or a party, your options were pretty limited.

Main Menu of Broderbund’s The Print Shop

You could get some blank sheets of paper and some crayons or felt markers for the whole do-it-yourself experience, which was cheap but unless you were a professional illustrator the results were bound to leave something to be desired, if not be downright embarrassing. Otherwise you could get the local printer to do it but it wasn’t going to be very cost-effective, especially in such a small quantity. Each poster could end up running you the same price as a Big Mac – or even a whole Meal Deal – and with that kind of overhead it could make the whole yard sale endeavour smell much less appetizing. And so, usually it was back to the felt markers or whatever else you could find lying around the house, and being the tightwad you were you would not-so-happily contribute an additional indignity to the ever-growing mountain of your own personal shame, because you wanted that Big Mac for yourself, dammit.

Dot Matrix Printers

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

You might have got the impression, upon entering Jane Smith’s house (sometime in 1986) that her husband was in the process of renovating their kitchen, the sound of a power tool growling and grinding away in the background. But you would’ve been wrong. No, what you heard was not the result of some sort of buzz saw or drill but rather the then-ubiquitous noise generated by the household’s 9-pin dot-matrix printer.

The Family Business: An Interview with Brøderbund Software founder Doug Carlston

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A 1983 photo of the Carlstons: Doug (left), Cathy (centre) and Gary (right)

Brøderbund Software Inc. was founded by brothers Doug and Gary Carlston in 1980 after Doug had written Galactic Empire, a space strategy game, on his TRS-80 (retro-trivia: many of the locations in the game have names taken from African languages, based on Doug’s years in Africa).