Shepardson Microsystems
| Public | |
| Industry | Microcomputer Software |
| Successor | Optimized Systems Software |
| Founder | Robert Shepardson |
| Defunct | 1981 |
| Headquarters | Saratoga Springs, New York, United States |
Shepardson Microsystems, Inc. (SMI) was a small company producing operating systems and programming languages for the Atari 8-bit and Apple II computer families. SMI is most noted for authoring Atari's BASIC and Disk Operating System (DOS) products.
Shepardson Microsystems was founded by Robert Shepardson in Saratoga Springs, New York.
On April 10, 1978, Shepardson Microsystems signed a contract with Apple. For $13,000 -- $5,200 up front, and $7,800 on delivery, and no additional royalties—Shepardson Microsystems would build Apple's first DOS—and hand it over just 35 days later. For its money, Apple would get a file manager, an interface for Integer BASIC and Applesoft BASIC, and utilities that would allow disk backup, disk recovery, and file copying. Apple provided detailed specifications, and early Apple employee Randy Wigginton worked closely with Shepardson's Paul Laughton as the latter wrote the operating system with punched cards and a minicomputer. That deal enabled release and sales of the Apple II.
Atari planned to follow up its successful Atari VCS computer game system with a more powerful home computer (The Atari 400 and Atari 800), to be introduced at the January 1979 Consumer Electronics Show. This required the development of a BASIC interpreter. A version of Microsoft BASIC for the MOS 6502 had been licensed for this purpose, but the task of retrofitting the code into an 8k cartridge proved too difficult.
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