Beagle Bros
 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer software |
| Founded | 1980-10-01 |
| Founder | Bert Kersey |
| Defunct | 1991 |
| Headquarters | , |
Key people | Bert Kersey, Alan Bird, Jack Cassidy, Mark Simonsen |
Beagle Bros was a software company that specialized in creating personal computing products that were both useful and whimsical. Their primary focus was on the Apple II family of computers.
History
Beagle Bros (the lack of a period at the end is intentional; "there wasn't room") was founded in 1980 by Bert Kersey and expanded over the years to include a wide variety of staff members, programmers, and designers. Whereas most software companies focused on professional users and business systems, Kersey founded the company with the intention of supporting the "hobbyist" users who had sprung up when affordable personal computers were made available to the general public.
As a result, much of the Beagle Bros product line consists of software that put the creative power in the hands of the user or expanded popular products of other companies. Apple Mechanic allowed users to create their own shape tables (an early form of sprites) to create their own games, DOS Boss let users patch the disk operating system, and Beagle Bag had a number of simple but fun games written in BASIC that budding programmers could also list out and learn from. In the early days, every Beagle Bros order also included a "Peeks, Pokes, & Pointers" chart, a wall poster that budding Apple hackers could use as a reference for the memory locations that did useful things on the Apple II. The company also later released a Big Tip Book containing many programming tips for Apple hobbyists and also published a Tip Disk. The company took great pride in not copy-protecting their software.
When the Apple IIgs was released, Beagle Bros was among the first companies to release high-quality packages that took full advantage of that computer's capabilities. Both Platinum Paint and BeagleWrite GS are still regarded as being among the high points of commercial IIgs software.
Beagle Bros reached a new audience when they began producing add-ons for the AppleWorks integrated package. Their first AppleWorks add-on, released in 1986, was the MacroWorks keyboard shortcut utility. Beagle Bros programmers later devised an API for creating AppleWorks add-ons, which they dubbed TimeOut. The company produced an extensive and ever-expanding line of TimeOut products. Three TimeOut programmers were tapped by Claris to develop AppleWorks 3.0, and the TimeOut API itself became a part of AppleWorks with version 4.0. Eventually the TimeOut API was made public and a number of non-Beagle TimeOut applications were released.
The end of an age came in 1991 when then-owner Mark Simonsen licensed the Beagle Bros Apple II line to Quality Computers. Quality Computers subsequently went through several acquisitions and no longer exists. However, many Beagle Bros "classics" were released as freeware in the mid-1990s, including most of the company's early utilities and games. Today, their programs are available on the Internet.
BeagleWorks, the company's main Macintosh product, was licensed to WordPerfect Corporation in 1992, where it became WordPerfect Works. This product was later discontinued after WordPerfect was acquired by Novell.
Many former "Beaglers" have continued to be involved in the software industry; for example, Joe Holt is one of the authors of iMovie, and Alan Bird has worked on Eudora and was the author of the OneClick shortcut utility for Macintosh. The company's founder, Bert Kersey, started a model train company after selling Beagle Bros, featuring much of the same humor, but is now retired and living in Fallbrook, California with his wife Sharon and a backyard full of barn owls.
Style
Perhaps the most memorable aspect of Beagle Bros was their use of vintage woodcut art in their print material. While many computer and software companies in the 1980s aimed for flashy, high-tech logos and advertising, Beagle Bros cultivated a nostalgic, down-home feel in keeping with their intended mission of creating software that was welcoming to inexperienced computer owners.
Humor permeated Beagle Bros products, even extending to the warning label printed on their 5.25" disk jackets. Unlike most disk care labels, which warned that magnets, water, and high temperatures could damage disks, Beagle Bros' warning icons admonished users not to use their disks as kites, fold them into paper planes, or feed them to alligators.
Another delight was the "two-liner" computer programs that peppered Beagle Bros advertising and mailers. Each new Beagle Bros communication contained one or more Applesoft BASIC programs tucked away in speech balloons or whitespace. The two-liners were always nigh-impenetrable, yet extremely clever, little programs that showcased unusual tricks or capabilities of the Apple II. At first these were written by Kersey himself; later, users began submitting their own. Eventually, almost every Beagle Bros release came with a selection of these "miniprograms" either on disk or in the box inserts.
Software
| Title | Author(s) | Published | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Printer | Lo-res graphics and titling program | ||
| Apple Plot | Bert Kersey and Jack Cassidy | 1980 | Hi-res graphics programs |
| Apple Mechanic | Bert Kersey | 1982 | Hi-res shape/font editor; multiple other utilities |
| Apple Mechanic Typefaces | Bert Kersey | Twenty-six fonts for use with Apple Mechanic | |
| AppleWorks 3.0 Companion | Patches for various AppleWorks 3.0 modules | ||
| Bag of Tricks | Examine, edit, reformat and repair disk data | ||
| Beagle Bag | Bert Kersey and the Beagle Bros staff | A collection of games including Buzzword!, Elevators, Hang Person, Magic Pack, Oink!, Pick-A-Pair, Quick-Draw!, Slippery Digits, Sub Search, TextTrain, Triple Digits and Wowzo, plus the Beagle Menu utility | |
| Beagle BASIC | Mark Simonsen | 1983 | An expanded version of AppleSoft BASIC with various new commands |
| The Beagle Compiler | Alan Bird | 1986 | AppleSoft BASIC program compiler |
| BeagleDraw | Robert A. Hearn and Jeff G. Erickson | 1989 | Apple IIGS graphic application, formerly TopDraw |
| Beagle Graphics | Mark Simonsen | Graphics editor in 16-color double hi-res | |
| Beagle Screens | Full-screen captionable clip art | ||
| BeagleWorks | Later renamed WordPerfect Works, then PerfectWorks | ||
| BeagleWrite, BeagleWrite GS | ProDOS-based GUI word processor, acquired from Styleware where it had been named MultiScribe | ||
| BeagleWrite Desk Accessories | Adds a clock, calendar and calculator | ||
| BeagleWrite Picture Manager | Allows import of Print Shop (8-bit) and Newsroom images | ||
| Big U | ProDOS utilities including CRT.WRITER, FILE.MOVER and KEYCAT.80 | ||
| Corn Game | Children's guessing game | ||
| D Code | Alan Bird | AppleSoft program optimizer and debugger | |
| DiskQuik | Harry Bruce and Gene Hite | Creates a virtual disk in RAM | |
| DOS Boss | Bert Kersey and Jack Cassidy | DOS 3.3 enhancer and command editor | |
| Double-Take | Mark Simonsen | Various small utilities including two-way text scrolling | |
| Extra K | Alan Bird and Mark Simonsen | An extended memory utility allowing AppleSoft to use a second 64K bank of memory in an upgraded IIe or IIc | |
| FatCat | Alan Bird | Disk library cataloger | |
| Flash | Joe Holt | 1989 | Tool to copy files over AppleTalk, integrated into the Finder. Beagle's first Macintosh program |
| Flex Type | Mark Simonsen | Variable-width hi-res text utility | |
| Font Mechanic | Thirty fonts for use with Shape Mechanic | ||
| Frame-Up | Tom Weishaar | Apple presentation program | |
| GPLE | Neil Konzen | Global Program Line Editor for AppleSoft BASIC programs. Originally published by Synergistic Software. | |
| GS Font Editor | Font editor for AppleWorks | ||
| I.O. Silver | Brad Wilhelmsen | Popular strategy/action game | |
| Macroworks | Enhancement for AppleWorks 1.3 | ||
| Master Find | Mastermind-style game | ||
| Minipix | A three-disk series of clipart collections | ||
| Platinum Paint | Apple IIGS paint program | ||
| Point-to-Point | Telecommunications program | ||
| Power Print | Dot matrix printer utility | ||
| Pro-Byter | Disk editor and ProDOS utilities | ||
| Program Writer | AppleSoft program editor | ||
| ProntoDOS | Tom Weishaar | Accelerated version of DOS 3.3 with other additional features | |
| Resource Disk | Sample file disk for SuperFonts Activity Guide | ||
| Shape Mechanic | Shape animation and screen fonts | ||
| Silicon Salad | Bert Kersey and Mark Simonsen | Various tips, tricks and utilities from Beagle Bros Tip Books 5, 6 and 7 | |
| Super Macroworks | AppleWorks 2.0 enhancement | ||
| TimeOut series | Various accessories and utilities for AppleWorks: DeskTools, DeskTools II, FileMaster, Graph, MacroEase, MacroTools, Paint, PowerPack, QuickSpell, ReportWriter, SideSpread, SpreadTools, SuperFonts, TeleComm, Thesaurus and UltraMacros | ||
| Tip Disk #1 | Bert Kersey | One hundred tips from the Beagle Bros Tip Books | |
| Triple-Dump | Mark Simonsen and Rob Renstrom | "Print anything" utility for dot matrix printers | |
| Utility City | Bert Kersey | 1982 | Twenty-one separate Apple utilities |
| Zoom Graphix | Sends hi-res images to any graphics-compatible printer |
Quotes
"Our programs are FUN to use. Our instructions are CLEAR and complete."
- — The Beagle Bros "Statement of Quality"
External links
- The Beagle Bros Online Museum
- The Beagle Brothers Software repository
- Nitrozone 5 has scans of the Beagle Bros posters, linked at the bottom of the page
- Backyard Barn Owls — Beagle Bros' founder's current Web site about barn owls (includes contact link)