Beagle Bros was an American software company that specialized in creating personal computing products. Their primary focus was on the

Apple II Apple II ("apple Roman numerals, two", stylized as Apple ][) is a series of microcomputers manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1977 to 1993. The Apple II (original), original Apple II model, which gave the series its name, was designed ...

family of computers. Although they ceased business in 1991, owner Mark Simonsen permitted the Beagle Bros name and logo to be included on the 30th anniversary reboot of I. O. Silver, released on December 12, 2014, by former Beagle programmer Randy Brandt.

History

Beagle Bros was founded in 1980 by Bert Kersey and expanded over the years to include a wide variety of staff members, programmers, and designers. Whereas most software companies focused on professional users and business systems, Kersey founded the company with the intention of capitalizing on the "hobbyist" market that had formed when affordable personal computers became more readily available. ''Apple Mechanic'' allowed users to create their own shape tables (an early form of Sprite (computer graphics), sprites) to create their own games, ''DOS Boss'' let users patch the disk operating system, and ''Beagle Bag'' had a number of games written in BASIC that people could utilize. Beagle Bros' catalog and print advertisements featured many playful programming tips about the Apple II system, many in the form of short

Applesoft BASIC Applesoft BASIC is a dialect of Microsoft BASIC, developed by Marc McDonald and Ric Weiland, supplied with Apple II computers. It supersedes Integer BASIC and is the BASIC in Read-only memory, ROM in all Apple II series computers after the ori ...

programs that took advantage of undocumented or unexpected behavior. Beagle Bros used

woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...

and other 19th century artwork in its printed designs. When the

Apple IIGS The Apple IIGS (styled as II) is a 16-bit personal computer produced by Apple Inc., Apple Computer beginning in September 1986. It is the fifth and most powerful model of the Apple II family. The "GS" in the name stands for "Graphics and Sound" ...

was released, Beagle Bros was among the first companies to release content for the platform. Both ''Platinum Paint'' and ''BeagleWrite GS'' (acquired and repackaged) are still regarded as being among the high points of commercial IIGS software. Beagle Bros began producing add-ons for

AppleWorks AppleWorks was an integrated office suite containing a word processor, Database#Database_management_system, database, and spreadsheet. It was developed by Rupert Lissner for Apple Inc., Apple Computer, originally for the Apple II and launched in ...

, its first being the MacroWorks keyboard shortcut utility by Randy Brandt. Beagle Bros programmer Alan Bird later devised an

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

for creating AppleWorks add-ons, which they dubbed TimeOut. TimeOut programmers Alan Bird, Randy Brandt and Rob Renstrom were tapped by

Claris Claris International Inc., formerly FileMaker Inc., is a computer software development company formed as a subsidiary company of Apple Inc., Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) in 1987. It was given the source code and copyrights to several program ...

to develop AppleWorks 3.0, and the TimeOut API itself became a part of AppleWorks with version 4.0. Eventually the TimeOut API was made public and a number of non-Beagle TimeOut applications were released. In 1991, Mark Simonsen licensed the Beagle Bros Apple II line to Quality Computers. Quality Computers subsequently went through several acquisitions and no longer exists. Multiple Beagle Bros products were released as

freeware Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...

in the mid-1990s, including most of the company's early utilities and games. Today, their programs are available on the Internet. BeagleWorks, the company's main Macintosh product, was licensed to

WordPerfect Corporation WordPerfect (WP) is a word processing application, now owned by Alludo, with a long history on multiple personal computer platforms. At the height of its popularity in the 1980s and early 1990s, it was the market leader of word processors, disp ...

in 1992, where it became WordPerfect Works. This product was later discontinued after WordPerfect was acquired by

Novell Novell, Inc. () was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as NetWare. Novell technolog ...

. The company also produced a few small Macintosh and PC utilities. Many former employees have continued to be involved in the software industry, such as Joe Holt who co-authored

iMovie iMovie is a free video editing software, video editing application made by Apple Inc., Apple for the Mac (computer), Mac, the iPhone, and the iPad. It includes a range of video effects and tools like color correction and image stabilization, b ...

, and Alan Bird who worked on Eudora and the OneClick shortcut utility for Macintosh. Randy Brandt created Online Army Knife, an award-winning Macintosh spell checker, and continued publishing AppleWorks products through his JEM Software spin-off. Mark Munz created Deja ] which allows AppleWorks to run under Mac OS X. The company's founder, Bert Kersey, started a model train">Mac_OS_X.html" ;"title=" which allows AppleWorks to run under Mac OS X"> which allows AppleWorks to run under Mac OS X. The company's founder, Bert Kersey, started a model train company after selling Beagle Bros, and is now retired.

Software

References

{{Reflist

External links

The Beagle Bros Online MuseumThe Beagle Brothers Software repositoryBeagle Bros' software at the Lost Classics ProjectBackyard Barn Owls
— Beagle Bros' founder's current Web site about barn owls (includes contact link) American companies established in 1980 American companies disestablished in 1991 Apple II software Technology companies based in San Diego Software companies established in 1980 Software companies disestablished in 1991 Defunct computer companies based in California Defunct software companies of the United States Privately held companies based in California