In 1985, Broderbund released Science Toolkit, a unique combination of hardware and software that enabled students to conduct simple experiments using an Apple II computer. Science Toolkit was an early example of ‘Microcomputer Based Labs’ or MBL, a concept first developed by Dr. Robert Tinker, a legend in the field of science education. While Tinker’s own efforts to commercially develop MBL–later known as ‘probeware’–fell short, Broderbund enjoyed success with Science Toolkit in the late 1980s, thanks largely to the company’s ability to market and distribute Apple II products to the educational market. This marketing effort included not one, but two glowing reviews for Science Toolkit on Computer Chronicles from Stewart Cheifet and Paul Schindler, respectively.

The January 1988 Macworld Expo in San Francisco was the second industry trade show to merit its own Computer Chronicles episode after the Las Vegas COMDEX show. Chronicles had devoted segments to earlier editions of Macworld–including the inaugural event in 1985–but this was the first time that the semi-annual gathering received full-episode coverage. No doubt this reflected the growing interest in the Macintosh platform, bolstered by the release of the Macintosh II and Macintosh SE the previous year as well as everyone’s favorite new software middleware product, HyperCard.

Computer Chronicles began 1988 with a focus on desktop scanners and digital imaging software, a field still in its earliest stages at the personal computer level. Stewart Cheifet opened this episode by showing Gary Kildall a portable scanner that used Xerox copier technology. He pulled the scanner over a printed page, and it produced a CVS receipt-like printout right away.

Cheifet noted that everyone seemed to be into scanning these days. Why the sudden fascination with this technology? Kildall said desktop publishing was a prime reason. People wanted to incorporate more graphics into their text documents. A second reason was the growing popularity of fax machines. But the big movement was towards the digital representation of information in electronic form. That made it a lot easier to assemble information, put it together, alter it, and publish it. It was simply a more flexible way to deal with information.

In the late 1970s, Will Harvey worked a summer paper route to help pay for his first computer, a Commodore PET. After trading up to an Apple II a few years later he developed Music Construction Set, which became one of the earliest hits for a small software startup called Electronic Arts. Harvey appeared on one of the first Computer Chronicles episodes to demonstrate his program while still in high school. He went on to a long career in the tech industry, while Electronic Arts used its “construction set” brand to establish itself as an innovator in entertainment software for microcomputers.

You always have to be cautious when declaring something was a “first” in video game history. But I think that Stewart Cheifet and Gary Kildall held what might have been the first nationally televised LAN party at the start of this December 1987 Computer Chronicles episode, the second in a two-part series on computer games. The dynamic duo demonstrated Falcon, an F-16 combat flight simulator published by Spectrum Holobyte. Cheifet explained the two PCs on the desk were networked so they could “see” each other. There was also a “flight recorder” built-in to the game so that if either player crashed, they could go back and see what they did wrong.

Even in the late 1980s, two of the biggest names in third-party game development were Electronic Arts and Activision. As of this writing in July 2023, EA has a market valuation of around $38 billion. Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard, the successor to the original Activision, Inc., is in the final stages of a $75 billion acquisition by Microsoft. Of course, neither EA nor Activision were worth anywhere near that much at the time of this next Computer Chronicles episode from December 1987.

During the early seasons of Computer Chronicles, Ashton-Tate was one of the Big Three business software companies together with Microsoft and Lotus Development Corporation. Ashton-Tate made its name with dBase II, a database application that quickly became the gold standard in its field. Unfortunately, Ashton-Tate never managed to grow its success beyond its core product, so when later versions of dBase failed to meet customer expectations, the company declined into irrelevancy.

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.”

Apple CEO John Sculley’s quest to extend the Macintosh’s reach in the business market took an important step in November 1987 with the launch of MultiFinder, an extension to the System Software 5 operating system that finally enabled a form of multitasking on the Mac. This gave Apple a jump on IBM’s long-promised multitasking OS/2 by a few weeks. And while the Mac never posed a serious challenge to the IBM PC and its clone army in the overall business market, the combination of MultiFinder with more expandable machines like the Macintosh II helped to cement Apple’s place as the primary alternative microcomputer platform for many business users.

The November 1987 edition of the Computer Chronicles holiday buyers’ guide began with Gary Kildall showing Stewart Cheifet the Sony XV-T600 Picture Computer, a $600 machine that added pictures and titles to home VCR movies. It also came with a small handheld scanner. Kildall demonstrated how you could place the scanner over a black-and-white drawing and digitize the image so it would appear on an attached television screen. The controls on the scanner could then be used to fill in the colors on the image. (You could also use a trackball, Kildall noted.) The color palette appeared on the lower right-hand corner of the television screen. The completed color image was then added on top of some video of a recent trip that Kildall had taken to New York City.