Brøderbund

Brøderbund Software, Inc. was an American maker of video games, educational software and productivity tools. Brøderbund is best known for the 8-bit computer game hits Choplifter, Lode Runner, Karateka, and Prince of Persia (all of which originated on the Apple II), as well as the The Print Shop—originally for printing signs and banners on dot matrix printers—and the Carmen Sandiego games. The company was founded in Eugene, Oregon, and moved to San Rafael, California, then later to Novato, California. Brøderbund was purchased by The Learning Company in 1998.

Many of Brøderbund's software titles, such as The Print Shop, PrintMaster and Mavis Beacon, are still published under the name "Broderbund" ("o" instead of "ø"). Games released by the revived Broderbund are distributed by Encore, Inc.

Corporate history

Brøderbund was founded by brothers Doug and Gary Carlston in 1980 for the purpose of marketing Galactic Empire, a video game that Doug Carlston had created in 1979. Their sister, Cathy, joined the company a year later. Before founding the company, Doug was a lawyer and Gary had held a number of jobs, including teaching Swedish at an American college.Galactic Empire had many names taken from African languages; a group of merchants was named Broederbond, Afrikaans for "association of brothers". To emphasize its family origin while avoiding a connection with the white-supremacist South African organization of the same name, the Carlstons altered the spelling when naming their company "Brøderbund".