Ambrosia Software was a predominantly

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software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

and

gaming Gaming may refer to: Games and sports The act of playing games, as in: * Legalized gambling, playing games of chance for money, often referred to in law as "gaming" * Playing a role-playing game, in which players assume fictional roles * Playing ...

company founded in 1993 and located in Rochester,

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. Ambrosia Software was best known for its Macintosh remakes of older arcade games, which began with a 1992 version of Atari, Inc.'s ''

Asteroids An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

'' from 1979. The company also published utility software. Its products were distributed as

shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. ...

; demo versions could be downloaded and used for up to 30 days. Later the company released some products for

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

. Ambrosia's best-selling program was the utility Snapz Pro X, according to a 2002 interview with company president Andrew Welch. In 2017, customers reported on Ambrosia's Facebook page that attempts to contact the company were unsuccessful and they were unable to make new purchases. As of July 2019, the website is offline. As of May 2021, the website resolves but leads to a domain parking page with ads unconnected to the company.

History

The first game distributed under the Ambrosia Software name was ''

Maelstrom Maelstrom may refer to: * Maelstrom (whirlpool), a powerful whirlpool ** originally the Moskstraumen in English Amusement rides * Maelstrom (ride), a former log flume dark ride attraction in the Epcot theme park at Walt Disney World Resort ...

'', a 1992

remake A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same s ...

of the 1979 ''

'' arcade video game. It uses raster graphics similar in style to Atari's later '' Blasteroids'' (1987) and the Atari ST game ''Megaroids'' (1988). Despite the concept being 13 years old at the time of release, ''Maelstrom'' was popular at a time when Macintosh action games were in short supply, and it won some software awards. ''Ambrosia Software'' was incorporated August 18, 1993, by Andrew Welch after he graduated from the

Rochester Institute of Technology The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a private university, private research university in Henrietta, New York, a suburb of Rochester, New York, Rochester. It was founded in 1829. It is one of only two institute of technology, institut ...

in 1992."Home-grown Ambrosia feeds software niche", Michael Saffran. In ''RIT: The University Magazine'', Vol. 10, #1 ''Maelstrom'' was followed by more action games, including ''Apeiron'' (a remake of ''Centipede''), ''Swoop'' (a clone of ''

Galaxian is a 1979 fixed shooter video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. The player assumes control of the Galaxip starfighter in its mission to protect Earth from waves of aliens. Gameplay involves destroying each formation of alien ...

''), and ''Barrack'' (a clone of ''

JezzBall ''JezzBall'' is a video game originally published for Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft ...

''). In 1999, Cameron Crotty of ''

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'' wrote that "No other company has gotten so much mileage out of renovating mid-1980s arcade hits." Nearly all of the company's ten employees were laid off in 2013, but Welch denied rumors of the company closing. In late 2018, the company's last remaining employee announced that Ambrosia was officially shutting down operations.

Products

Games

Ambrosia Software's games, in order of release: Ambrosia, in conjunction with DG Associates, has also released the ''Escape Velocity Nova'' card-driven board game.

Productivity software

Ambrosia Software's utilities, in order of release: * Eclipse —

Screen saver A screensaver (or screen saver) is a computer program that blanks the display screen or fills it with moving images or patterns when the computer has been idle for a designated time. The original purpose of screensavers was to prevent phosphor ...

CDEV * Big Cheese Key — FKey to mask screen image from boss. * FlashWrite — Text editor

Desk Accessory A desk accessory (DA) or desklet in computing is a small transient or auxiliary application that can be run concurrently in a desktop environment with any other application on the system. Early examples, such as Sidekick and Macintosh desk accesso ...

* FlashWrite ] * ColorSwitch — Menu bar item to change monitor color depth * EasyEnvelopes — Envelope printing Desk accessory. Later a Mac OS X v10.4">Menu_bar.html" ;"title="* ColorSwitch — Menu bar">* ColorSwitch — Menu bar item to change monitor color depth * EasyEnvelopes — Envelope printing Desk accessory. Later a Mac OS X v10.4 and Mac OS X v10.5 Dashboard (Mac OS), Dashboard widget. * Snapz * To Do! * Oracle * ColorSwitch Pro * Snapz Pro — Screen capture application * iSeek — Desktop search application * Snapz Pro X — Mac OS X-compatible version of original * WireTap Pro — Audio recording utility * Screen Cleaner Pro — April Fool's joke * Dragster —

File transfer File transfer is the transmission of a computer file through a communication channel from one computer system to another. Typically, file transfer is mediated by a communications protocol. In the history of computing, numerous file transfer protoc ...

application * iToner —

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

custom ringtone transfer utility * WireTap Studio — Audio recording, editing and master storage; won a 2007 "Eddy Award" from ''Macworld'' * WireTap Anywhere — professional virtual audio patchbay utility, enabling the recording of any Mac OS X application's audio output from within any Mac OS X audio application. * Soundboard — Mac OS X Audio playback ("computerized cart machine") * Big Cheese Key X — Mac OS X-compatible version of original

Abandoned projects

In 1996, Ambrosia announced the development of a 3D horror-themed adventure game called ''Manse'' by Brian Barnes. It was demoed at

Macworld Expo Macworld/iWorld (originally Macworld) was an information technology trade show with conference tracks dedicated to Apple's Mac platform. It was held annually in the United States during January. Originally ''Macworld Expo'' and then ''Macworld Con ...

in 1998. In 2014, Tod Baudais claimed to be continuing work on a cancelled Ambrosia project called'' Goo Moo'', or ''Gooliens'', a game about a green alien blob that must grow in size in order to abduct cows.

Shareware policies

One of Ambrosia's founding

mantras A mantra ( ; Pali: ''mantra'') or mantram (Devanagari: मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words (most often in an Indo-Iranian language like Sanskrit or Avestan) belie ...

was that shareware software should not be distributed as

crippleware Crippleware is computer software or hardware that has been intentionally designed to have some of its features disabled or not working to its full capability until payment of some kind is rendered. In software, crippleware means that "vital featu ...

. The company's software was released on the

honor system An honor system, trust system or honesty system is a way of running a variety of endeavors based on trust, honor, and honesty. The honor system is also a system granting freedom from customary surveillance (as to students or prisoners) with ...

with only a short reminder that you had used the unregistered software for "x" amount of time, creating what is commonly called nagware. This policy was later changed and the company employed typical shareware

piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...

prevention measures, as well as more innovative ones such as used in the Escape Velocity line of games where the team's mascot, Hector the Parrot (known in-game as Cap'n Hector), would use her heavily armed ship to ceaselessly attack players of unregistered copies after the trial period had expired. Their software products therefore began to fall under the category of crippleware. Although the company no longer provides new expiring license codes, Ambrosia's founder Andrew Welch released Decoder Ring which allows anyone to generate new license codes. Matt Slot has written about the factors that played into the policy change.

References

External links

*
The Ambrosia Archive
(a fan-run archive of Ambrosia Software installers) {{Ambrosia Software American companies established in 1993 American companies disestablished in 2019 Companies based in Rochester, New York Macintosh software companies Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Video game companies established in 1993 Video game companies disestablished in 2019 Privately held companies based in New York (state) Defunct companies based in New York (state) 1993 establishments in New York (state) 2019 disestablishments in New York (state) Defunct software companies of the United States Defunct computer companies based in New York (state)