Title
Carlston, Douglas oral history
Catalog Number
102658043
Type
Document
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 Broderbund (which is sort of a faux Scandinavian name) and then signed a deal with SoftSell to distribute the programs on a much broader basis. Broderbund 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.
Date
2004-11-19
Contributor
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Bergin, Thomas (Tim), Interviewer
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Carlston, Douglas G., Interviewee
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Grad, Burt, Editor
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Publisher
Computer History Museum
Place of Publication
Mountain View, CA, USA
Extent
24 p.
Category
Transcription
Subject
Software business history; Carlston, Douglas; Broderbund; Galactic Saga games; SoftSell; Alien Rain; Accounting software; Bank Street Writer; Print Shop; Carmen Sandiego; Family Tree Maker; Software
Collection Title
Oral history collection
