Details

Type

Text

Title

Carlston (Douglas) Oral History

Contributor

Bergin, Tim, Interviewer

Carlston, Douglas, Interviewee

Grad, Burt, Editor

Publisher

Computer History Museum

Date

2004-11-19

Place of Publication

Mountain View, Calif.

Extent

24 p.

Description

Douglas Carlston describes his education in different fields including getting a law degree from Harvard Law School, building houses (on spec), and becoming an ad hoc programmer. He began writing games programs to run on his TRS-80 and Apple II and then his brother and he started selling these programs to retail computer stores around the country. He called his company Br?derbund (which is sort of a faux Scandinavian name) and then signed a deal with SoftSell to distribute the programs on a much broader basis. Br?derbund became very successful, first with the games programs and then with a wide range of small business and personal programs for accounting and word processing. He describes how the company was a family business (with a number of his relatives involved) and how he maintained this style of operation. The company later marketed some high volume products like Print Shop and various add-ons and derivatives. He closes with reference to taking the company public in 1991.

Category

Transcript

Subject

Software business history; Carlston, Douglas; Br?derbund; Galactic Saga games; SoftSell; Alien Rain; Accounting software; Bank Street Writer; Print Shop; Carmen Sandiego; Family Tree Maker; Software

Collection Title

Oral Histories Online

Accession Number

102658043