GST was a group of computer companies based in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, founded by Jeff Fenton in June 1979. The company worked with Atari,

Sinclair Research Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Clive Sinclair in Cambridge. It was originally incorporated in 1973 as Westminster Mail Order Ltd, renamed Sinclair Instrument Ltd, then Science of Cambridge Ltd, the ...

, Torch Computers,

Acorn Computers Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the United Kingdom, UK, including the Acorn Electron and the Acorn Archi ...

Monotype Corporation Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., founded as Lanston Monotype Machine Company in 1887 in Philadelphia by Tolbert Lanston, is an American (historically Anglo-American) company that specializes in digital typesetting and typeface design for use wit ...

and Kwik-Fit, amongst others. The group included: * GST Computer Systems: the original name of the company. * GST Professional Services: a software consultancy that was sold and became OTIB A.T. * GST Software Products: produced

retail software Retail software is computer software, typically installed on PC-type computers post 2005, delivered via the Internet (also known as cloud-based). Traditionally this software was delivered via physical data storage media sold to end consumer but ver ...

, most notably

Timeworks Publisher Timeworks Publisher was a desktop publishing (DTP) program produced by GST Software in the United Kingdom. It is notable as the first affordable DTP program for the IBM PC. In appearance and operation, it was a Ventura Publisher clone, but it w ...

. * GST Training Centre: a class based software training provider in

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

, UK. * Electric Software: a games software label, producing titles for home computers such as the Commodore 64,

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

, and

MSX MSX is a standardized home computer architecture, announced by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation on June 16, 1983. It was initially conceived by Microsoft as a product for the Eastern sector, and jointly marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, then vice-p ...

-compatible models in the early 1980s. GST Computer Systems started as a contract software development company. In 1983, it became involved with Sinclair Research, producing the

68K/OS 68K/OS was a computer operating system developed by GST Computer Systems for the Sinclair QL microcomputer. It was commissioned by Sinclair Research in February 1983. However, after the official launch of the QL in January 1984, 68K/OS was reje ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

(later rejected by Sinclair) and development software for the

Sinclair QL The Sinclair QL (for ''Quantum Leap'') is a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as an upper-end counterpart to the ZX Spectrum. The QL was aimed at the serious home user and professional and executive users markets from small ...

. In 1985 it was approached by

Atari Corporation Atari Corporation was an American manufacturer of computers and video game consoles. It was founded by Jack Tramiel on May 17, 1984, as Tramel Technology, Ltd., but then took on the Atari name less than two months later when Warner Communica ...

to port products from the QL on to the just to be launched Atari ST. The

word processing A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...

package ''

1st Word 1st Word is a word processor program for the Atari ST developed by GST Computer Systems and published in 1985. It was given away with all ST systems from December 1985 for the next two years. Although it was relatively well received, it was a ve ...

'' was bundled with every Atari ST for the first two years of its life and GST became the leading software supplier for the Atari ST platform. In 1987 GST developed its first

desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online ...

application, Timeworks Publisher. This was sold in the US by Timeworks, Inc. (a

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

based software publisher) as

Publish-It! Timeworks Publisher was a desktop publishing (DTP) program produced by GST Software in the United Kingdom. It is notable as the first affordable DTP program for the IBM PC. In appearance and operation, it was a Ventura Publisher clone, but ...

. This product went on to become the world-leading budget DTP product until competition from

Microsoft Publisher Microsoft Publisher is a desktop publishing application from Microsoft, differing from Microsoft Word in that the emphasis is placed on page layout and graphic design rather than text composition and proofreading. Overview Publisher is inc ...

in 1993 caused the eventual demise of Timeworks, Inc. The product was sold under new names including NEBS PageMagic (changed after objections from

Adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for '' mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of ...

), Macmillan Publisher, Canon Publisher, and many other brands, distinguished by use of the

file extension A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (e.g., .txt, .docx, .md). The extension indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically ...

. The latest version was sold as Greenstreet Publisher 4 and is downwards file compatible with earlier versions. In 2001 GST merged with eGames Europe as a new company, Greenstreet Software. It remains a developer and publisher of computer software for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

operating systems. In July 2008 the company was reconstructed and now trades as Greenstreet Online Limited. In November 2012, Greenstreet Online Limited was declared insolvent, and went into voluntary liquidation.

References

External links

greenstreet Softwrap product announcement
Defunct software companies of the United Kingdom Defunct computer companies of the United Kingdom Software companies established in 1979 Software companies disestablished in 2001 1979 establishments in England 2001 disestablishments in England British companies disestablished in 2001 British companies established in 1979 {{ict-company-stub

See also

References

External links