Flat Rock Software
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| Private | |
| Industry | Software, Internet |
| Founded | Shreveport, LA (1981) |
| Defunct | 2016 |
| Headquarters | Shreveport, LA |
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Key people
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Jim Mangham, Founder Judi Mangham, Founder Al Vekovius, Founder, Past CEO John Beaird, Past CEO John Carmack, Former Game Programmer John Romero, Former Game Programmer & Designer Tom Hall, Former Game Designer Adrian Carmack, John Frasier, Former Lead Web Developer Former Artist Kevin Cloud, Former Artist and Manager Jay Wilbur, Former Manager Michael Amarello, Former Manager Mike Hogan, System Administrator Patrick Nix, Vice President Sales Jason Bonnough, Assistant System Administrator, Lead Technical Support Cregg S. Hardwick, Associate Editor |
| Products |
Softdisk (Apple II diskmagazine) Softdisk G-S (Apple IIGS diskmagazine) Loadstar (Commodore 64 diskmagazine) Softdisk PC Softdisk for Windows Softdisk for Mac Screen Saver Studio Catacomb 3-D Keen Dreams |
| Website | www.softdisk.com |
Softdisk is a software and Internet company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Founded in 1981, its original products were disk magazines (which they termed "magazettes", for "magazine on diskette"). They were affiliated and partly owned by paper magazine Softalk at their founding, but survived its demise.
Names they have been known by at various times and for various purposes include: Softdisk Magazette, Softdisk Publishing, Softdisk, Inc., Softdisk Internet Services, Softdisk, L.L.C., and Magazines On Disk.
Publications included:
By the late 1990s, these publications were discontinued, although Loadstar had a continued life as an independent company catering to a cult following of Commodore buffs.
Softdisk has also published some standalone programs, including screensaver creator Screen Saver Studio (which is now published by Flat Rock Software).
They are probably most famous for being the former workplace of several of the founders of id Software, who worked on a short-lived game subscription product, Gamer's Edge. Gamer's Edge was a monthly PC game disk started in 1990 by John Romero. The disk's developers were John Carmack, John Romero, and Adrian Carmack. Tom Hall, then a programmer who worked in the Apple II department of Softdisk, would come in at night to help with the game design. Lane Roathe was the editor. Before he became a popular author Clayton Crooks had several games published by Softdisk.
These developers later left Softdisk to found id Software. To complete their contractual obligation to Softdisk, they did several more games for them including Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion, Rescue Rover, Hovertank 3D, Rescue Rover 2, Tiles of the Dragon, Catacomb 3D and Keen Dreams (the "lost" episode of the Commander Keen series). Softdisk later hired a new team to create new titles using the game engines of the earlier games, including the later founders of JAM Productions. This connection led to Softdisk being mentioned extensively in the earlier parts of the id chronicling book Masters of Doom.
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Wikipedia