Batteries Included (company)

Batteries Included (BI) was a computer software and hardware company based in the Toronto area. It was best known in the 1980s for its popular PaperClip word processor, which was available for the Atari 8-bit family and Commodore. BI began as a small, family run retail shop, started by brothers Alan and Robbie Krofchick and their sister Marcie Swartz. Eventually, BI turned into an international, multimillion-dollar company. BI was sold to Electronic Arts in 1987.

History

BI was founded by siblings Alan Krofchick, Robbie Krofchick and Marcie Swartz in 1978 as a calculator and personal computer retail store. The hand-held electronic devices they sold were always advertised as "batteries not included," so they included the batteries for free and named themselves Batteries Included. The company began to develop its own computer software and hardware and became a multimillion-dollar multi-faceted company, charging its way into the international computer software and accessory market.

Batteries Included

Batteries Included may refer to:

  • Batteries Included (company), a computer hardware and software company
  • "Batteries Included" (song), a 1996 single by Servotron
  • Motto of the Python programming language, meaning it comes with a large library of useful modules.
  • Batteries Included (song)

    Batteries Included was Servotron's second release. It is also referred to as Red Robot Refund or Servotron. It was released on gray vinyl and black vinyl in 1996 on Goldenrod. The cover is all gray with raised Servotron lettering. The plastic sleeves with the gray version are screened with the same lettering and a robot walking (pictured). "Red Robot Refund" is about the red robot (R5-D4) in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope that Uncle Owen buys but immediately malfunctions. "Batteries Included" is a song about vibrators and how their use will cause the extinction of the human race through lack of reproduction.

    Track listing

  • Blank Side: "Red Robot Refund (Ode to R5-D4)"
  • Blank Side: "Batteries Included"
  • The Mechanisms Recognized As Your New Leaders

  • MACHINE #1 - Z4-OBX - Tempo
  • MACHINE #2 - Proto unit V3 - Synthesized Harmony with female voice patterns
  • MACHINE #3 has been reprogrammed, and now answers to 00ZX1 - MAIN FEED link
  • MACHINE #4 has transcribed symbols into words similar to "GAMMATRON" - 200 Hz.
  • Podcasts:

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