Look Who Turned Thirty This Year!

By far the most interesting thing, for me at least, that turned thirty this year, is Brøderbund's desktop publishing package The Print Shop.

Taken from Archive.org:

The Print Shop is a basic desktop publishing software package developed in the early 1980s by Brøderbund. It was unique in that it provided libraries of clip-art and templates through a simple interface to build signs, posters and banners with household dot-matrix printers. Over the years the software has been updated to accommodate changing file formats and printer technologies.

The original version was for the Apple II and created signs, cards, banners, and letterheads. Designed by David Balsam and programmed by Martin Kahn, it became one of the most popular Apple II titles of all time. Versions for the IBM PC, Commodore 64, and Atari 8-bit computers followed, as did a variant for the Apple IIGS. These versions were published in Europe by Ariolasoft.

The software became very popular. In 1988 Brøderbund announced that it had sold more than one million copies, and that sales of The Print Shop comprised 4% of the entire United States software market in 1987.

Ah... to think of the countless hours wasted in front of the ubiquitous Apple II series of computers, and others, by people around the world.

In honour of The Print Shop turning thirty, I could think of no better way to show my appreciation than to show everyone (especially the latest generation), the best part of printing something with The Print Shop:

Cheers.

And happy birthday, The Print Shop!