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- BERKELEY SOFTWORKS . . . A BRIEF HISTORY
-
- BERKELEY SOFTWORKS was founded in 1983 by Brian Dougherty. Prior to
- founding Berkeley Softworks, Mr. Dougherty was founder and vice
- president of engineering at Imagic, a video game and consumer software
- company. While Imagic was venture capital funded, Dougherty chose to
- bootstrap Berkeley Softworks (BSW) using his own money and revenues
- from technical consulting projects.
-
- Mr Dougherty located the company in Berkeley, across the street from
- the University of California. The reason for choosing UC Berkeley as a
- location was twofold: he could tap into the technical research on
- campus and recruit bright engineering students to join the company.
- During its first two years, BSW functioned as a technical consulting
- company designing products for other manufacturers. These products
- ranged from software for Apple, IBM, and Commodore computers to a
- complete LCD based laptop computer. Several projects involved both
- hardware and software design.
-
- By the end of its second year, BSW had purchased the computing systems
- and designed the software development tools necessary to begin
- internal product development. In looking for market opportunities for
- his technical staff to exploit, Mr. Dougherty made a startling
- discovery; the largest installed base computer in the world did not
- have a disk operating system (DOS).
-
- The name of that computer is just as startling: the Commodore 64
- (C64). Being inexpensive, the C64 is often overshadowed by higher
- priced computers like the IBM PC. Although IBM PC revenues may be
- greater, the C64 actually has led year in and year out in unit sales.
- To a software developer, the size of the installed base, not the cost
- of the computer is the single most important consideration. The
- installed base defines the potential market.
-
- From their work as technical consultants, developing software for a
- wide variety of PC's, the BSW staff knew the C64 had far greater
- potential than most people realized. In the staff's opinion, the C64
- was superior to the Apple II, Apple's cash cow. However, due to the
- absence of a real disk operating system, the machine was preceived as
- being inferior.
-
- In August of 1985, BSW began developing a new DOS for the C64, "A New
- Soul for an Old Machine". The goal was to bring state-of-the-art
- operating system features to this inexpensive mass marketed computer.
- In January of '86, a prototype of the new DOS was demonstrated to
- Commodore. Amazed at the performance being squeezed out of their
- inexpensive computer, Commodore contracted to bundle GEOS with future
- C64 sales. BSW retained the right to market the product into the
- existing installed base. In March of '86, GEOS V1.0 was released.
-
- GEOS stands for Graphic Environment Operating System. It is a menu
- and icon based graphical operating system that gives C64 owners the
- power and ease of use previously found only on much more expensive
- personal computers. The GEOS packagae comes with the operating system
- kernel, the deskTOP graphical interface to the operating system;
- geoWRITE V1.3, a multi-font WYSIWYG (WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET)
- wordprocessor; geoPAINT, a sophisticated graphics editing program; and
- the following pop-up desk accessories: a calculator, notepad,
- preference manager, and photo and text managers (for cutting and
- pasting text and graphics between applications). The entire package
- sells for $59.95.
-
- GEOS was originally sold through mail order. The revenues generated
- from the mail order sales allowed the company to roll out to retail
- distribution. In June of 1986 GEOS, V1.2 was released to retail
- (all V1.O owners were upgraded for free). And now GEOS V1.3 is ready.
-
- The company's goal is to become a mojor personal computer software
- vendor. While the current product line is targeted at the consumer
- marketplace, the company is in the process of developing products for
- both the Commodore Amiga and IBM PC. Future plans include keeping
- BSW's fixed overhead to a minimum and tracking the current national
- resurgence in PC interest and sales.
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