If you used a computer at school during the 1980s or early 1990s, there’s likely a handful of software titles that you can still recognize today, such as The Oregon Trail, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. The companies behind these iconic programs once competed in a market that featured dozens of small firms jockeying for sales at a time when personal computers were still a relatively new concept for most consumers. And as the PC slowly became a mass-market consumer electronics product in the 1990s, the software industry started to undergo its own rapid consolidation and contraction.

Only about 13 percent of video games published in the United States prior to 2010 remain commercially available today, according to a study published on July 10 by the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF). Phil Salvador, the VGHF’s library director, authored the landmark study, which examined 4,000 classic video games first released on the Commodore 64, Nintendo Game Boy family, and Sony PlayStation 2. Overall, Salvador concluded that legal access to historical titles was “dire” across all software ecosystems and represented a “crisis for the entire medium of video games.”

In the studio introduction for a March 1987 Computer Chronicles episode on computers and gambling, Stewart Cheifet showed Gary Kildall a hand-held, calculator-like device that claimed to help people pick winning race horses. Although Cheifet never identified the device by name, it was the Mattel Horse Race Analyzer, an odd footnote in the history of Mattel Electronics, which itself was a short-lived subsidiary of the famed Los Angeles-based toy company.

Thirty-six years ago today, episode 482 of Jeopardy! hosted by Alex Trebek aired in syndication. One of the contestants was someone familiar to readers of this blog: Paul Schindler, the longtime software reviewer and frequent panelist on Computer Chronicles. As it turned out Schindler–who recently celebrated his 70th birthday–was something of a game show aficionado back in the day.

According to Schindler’s own account, he first tried out for the original Jeopardy! (1964 - 1975) hosted by Art Fleming. While a freshman at MIT in the early 1970s, Schindler took the train from Boston to New York, where Jeopardy! *taped at the time, to take the test. But he never received a callback, which Scindler thought might have been due to his long hair and beard scaring off the producers at the time.

The Software Publishers Association (SPA) began in 1984 as the lobbying arm for the still-nascent computer software industry. The SPA later became intimately associated with Computer Chronicles. The organization was a presenting sponsor for several seasons, and during the 1990s the Chronicles dedicated episodes to coverage of the SPA’s annual software awards, the “Codies.” By the end of Chronicles’ run in 2002, the SPA had merged with the Information Industry Association to form the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), which continues to hand out the Codies today.

Morrow Designs, Inc., the company founded by George Morrow and his wife in 1979, was part of the early wave of small manufacturers that produced microcomputers for the business market. Morrow Designs, Osborne Computer Corporation, Kaypro Corporation, and Vector Graphic all basically followed the same playbook: Sell a pre-assembled computer bundled with Gary Kildall’s CP/M operating system and other business software, such as a word processor and a spreadsheet.

The short version of history tells us that these early companies all withered away after IBM debuted its own Personal Computer and made Microsoft’s PC-DOS (i.e., MS-DOS) the new operating system standard. But there were, of course, other factors involved in each company’s demise. In the case of Morrow Designs, the biggest reason for the company’s failure was George Morrow himself.

In the studio introduction for the 1986 Computer Chronicles episode on computers and law enforcement, Stewart Cheifet and Gary Kildall looked at an educational game, Murder by the Dozen, running on the Macintosh. BrainBank, Inc., created the game for CBS Software. Murder was actually one of two BrainBank games marketed by CBS under the name Mystery Master, the other being a sequel called Felony!

The two games essentially played the same. Each came with 12 murder mysteries for a group of between 1 and 4 players to solve. Imagine Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? but multiplayer and confined to a single city. Each player must visit various locations around the fictional city of Micropolis and gather clues by selecting items from a menu.

In an early third-season episode of Computer Chronicles that I previously covered, Wendy Woods presented one of her remote segments from the Women’s Computer Literacy Project, a San Francisco-based computer school run by Deborah L. Brecher. This report was part of the episode’s larger theme of “women in computing.” Brecher’s school provided vocational training in computers to all-female classes.

Woods also mentioned Brecher’s book, The Women’s Computer Literacy Handbook, which she wrote as a companion text for her classes. Although the title may sound oft-putting at first, having reviewed the book myself, it was actually a wonderfully written introduction to the subject of mid-1980s computing. Brecher took care in her introduction to note that she was not trying to be “condescending to the woman reader.” To the contrary, her objective was to use analogies to explain “many computer concepts that [were] rarely discussed in beginners’ books because they are believed to be too difficult.”

In one of his earliest software reviews for the “Random Access” segment of Computer Chronicles, Paul Schindler praised Ken Uston’s Professional Blackjack, noting that while “most computer games will just play blackjack with you,” this program “will teach you how to play the game and win using various point counting methods.” Schindler said it was also “pretty rare when the writer gets top billing when they name a computer program, but Uston deserves it.” Schindler explained Uston was a “former official of the Pacific Stock Exchange and now he’s a full-time gambler.”

A prominent feature of early-era Computer Chronicles episodes was Paul Schindler’s software reviews, which normally appeared in the middle of the “Random Access” segment. This post keeps a running list of the products that Paul reviewed.

Episode	Date	Title	Description	Publisher	Price
118	May 1984	Archon: The Light and the Dark	Game	Electronic Arts	$40
125	October 1984	Ken Uston’s Professional Blackjack	Game	Intelligent Statements	$70
201	January 1985	Be Your Own Coach	Workout Scheduler	Avant-Garde	$50
202	January 1985	dBASE III	Database	Ashton-Tate	$700
203	January 1985	Free Will	Estate Planning Tool	San Francisco PC Users Group	$6 (Shareware)
204	February 1985	TuneSmith/PC	Music Converter	Blackhawk Data Corporation	$50
205	February 1985	Night Mission Pinball	Pinball Game	subLOGIC	$40
206	February 1985	PFS:Plan	Spreadsheet	Software Publishing Corp.	$140
207	February 1985	WordMaker	Crossword Dictionary	Word Associates	$10
208	March 1985	ExecuTime	Calendar Manager	Advanced Productivity Software	$50
209	March 1985	The Overhead Express	Presentation Software	Professional Software	$95
210	March 1985	TopView	DOS Shell	IBM	$149
211	March 1985	PFS:Proof	Spellchecker	Software Publishing Corp.	$95
213	April 1985	Higgins	Desk Organizer	Conectic Systems, Inc.	$400
215	April 1985	Ability	Office Suite	Xanaro	$495
218	May 1985	Copy II PC	Disk Copy Utility	Central Point Software	$50
219	May 1985	Bank President	Management Simulator	Lewis Lee Corporation	$75
222	June 1985	The Stickybear ABC	Edutainment	Xerox Educational Publications	$40
301	September 1985	CataList	Mailing List Manager	Automation Consultants International	$250
302	September 1985	Ultimate Trivia	Game	Mentor Learning Systems	$50
303	September 1985	Da Vinci	Outline Editor	Applied Microsystems	$50
304	September 1985	PC Color	Screensaver	Affirmware	$35/$44
307	October 1985	Bakup	Backup Utility	InfoTools	$150
308	October 1985	NFL Challenge	Sports Management Simulator	Xor	$99
309	October 1985	Concepts Computerized Atlas	Atlas	Software Concepts	$5/$50
310	May 1986	Paradox	Database	Ansa Software	$695
311	May 1986	An Apple a Day	Medical Information Organizer	Avant Garde	$79.95
312	May 1986	Zoomracks	Database Manager	Quickview	$125
313	November 1985	PC Planetarium	Astronomy	Light Software	$52
314	December 1985	Wizard of Wall Street	Stock Market Simulator	Synapse Software	$45
315	December 1985	Rocky’s Boots	Edutainment	The Learning Company	$50
316	December 1985	Golden Oldies	Games Compilation	Software Country	$35
317	January 1986	PFS:Access	Communications Package	Software Publishing Corp.	$95
320	February 1986	Volkswriter 3.0	Word Processor	Lifetree Software	$300
323	February 1986	411	Indexing Tool	Select Information Systems	$149
401	September 1986	Word Finder	Thesaurus	Writing Consultants, Inc.	$80
402	Septemebr 1986	Q-DOS	File Manager	Gazelle Systems	$30
403	September 1986	Color Magic	EGA Palette Selector	Lifetree Software	$40
404	October 1986	Tornado Notes	Note-taking Manager	Micro Logic	$50
405	October 1986	ServTech	PC Repair Guide	Rylos Technologies	$50
406	October 1986	Mean 18	Golf Game	Accolade	$45
407	October 1986	Get!	Electronic Mail	Signet Technologies	$90
408	October 1986	The Idea Generator	Decision Support System	Experience in Software	$200
409	November 1986	Scriptor	Television Script Utility	Screenplay Systems, Inc.	$300
410	November 1986	IQ Test	IQ Test	Rational Designs	$40
411	November 1986	The Toy Shop	Design Tool	Broderbund Software	$65
412	November 1986	Time Bandit	Maze Game	MichTron	$40
413	December 1986	Perspective	3D Graphing	3D Graphics	$300
414	June 1987	TMPC	Time Management	Acroatix	$50
416	January 1987	The Page	DOS Utility	Orion Microsystems	$22
421	February 1987	UX-Basic	Programming	Human Computing Resources	$400
422	February 1987	Ford Simulator	Advertisement	Beck-Tech	Free
425	December 1988	In-Synch	Remote Workgroup Tool	AVTC	$500
426	March 1987	KidsTime	Educational Games	Great Wave Software	$50
427	March 1987	IS-2000	Integrated Software	Noumenon Corporation	$40
428	October 1987	TimeSlips	Hourly Billing	North Edge Software Corporation	$100
429	April 1987	MORE	Outliner	Living Videotext	$295
430	May 1987	HFS Backup	Backup Utility	Personal Computing Peripherals	$50
431	September 1987	Dark Castle	Macintosh Game	Silicon Beach Software	$50
502	June 1988	Smart Alarms	Reminder Tool	Imagine Software	$50
503	November 1987	Klondike 3.0	Solitaire	Computer Capabilities Corporation	$50
504	November 1987	MultiMate	Data Manager	Broderbund Software	$80
505	November 1987	Webster’s Electronic Thesaurus	Thesaurus	Proximity Technology	$90
506	December 1987	‘Twas the Night Before Christmas	Holiday Card	Simon & Schuster	$10
506	December 1987	Science Toolkit - Body Module	Science Kit	Broderbund	$40
506	December 1987	Microsoft Bookshelf	Reference CD-ROM	Microsoft	N/A
508	December 1987	Smartcom II	Telecommunications	Hayes Microcomputer	$100
509	December 1987	Leather Godesses of Phobos	Text Adventure Game	Infocom	$50
511	December 1988	Gofer	Indexing & Search	Microlytics	$60
512	January 1988	Stepping Out	Virtual Monitor	Berkeley Systems Design	$95
513	July 1988	Microsoft Excel Templates	Shareware	Heizer Software	$4
514	July 1988	Test Drive	Racing Game	Accolade	$40
515	March 1988	Ad Lib Personal Computer Music System	Music Hardware/Software	Ad Lib	$250
516	July 1988	Mentor	Intelligence Testing	Heuristic Reserch	$50
517	March 1988	The Electronic Encyclopedia	CD-ROM Encyclopedia	Grolier Electronic Publishing	$300
518	August 1988	Suitcase	Accessories Manager	Software Supply	$60