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Lifeboat Associates, Inc., was a New York City company that was one of the largest
microcomputer A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (P ...
software distributors in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Lifeboat acted as an independent software broker marketing software to major hardware vendors such as Xerox, HP and Altos. As such Lifeboat Associates was instrumental in the founding of
Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that provides software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquarte ...
and also financed the creation of ''
PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Mag ...
''.


Overview

Lifeboat was founded in 1976Programmers Paradise Inc., Form 10-K, for the fiscal year ended December 31, 199

/ref> or 1977 by Larry Alkoff and Tony Gold. By mid-1981 the company had same-name affiliates in England, Switzerland, France, Germany, Japan and
Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...
. ''
PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Mag ...
'' in 1982 wrote that Lifeboat "has published and marketed more
CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/Intel 8085, 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Dig ...
application programs on more 8-bit machines than anyone in the world", and in 1983 ''InfoWorld'' said that Lifeboat was the largest publisher of microcomputer software in the world. Lifeboat Associates combined many roles, including publisher and distributor, and actively solicited authors for software products that met its standards. 20% of revenue was from dealers, and the rest from direct retail sales to mail-order customers from a
mailing list A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. Mailing lists are often rented or sold. If rented, the renter agrees to use the mailing list only at contra ...
of 160,000. Lifeboat converted software between CP/M disk formats; companies such as
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...
and
Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...
paid it to compile software catalogs included with computers. Proprietary products were 25% of revenue. The company distributed T/Maker (written by Peter Roizen), one of the first spreadsheet programs designed for the personal computer user, which went a step beyond the similar
VisiCalc VisiCalc ("visible calculator") is the first spreadsheet computer program for personal computers, originally released for the Apple II by VisiCorp on October 17, 1979. It is considered the killer application for the Apple II, turning the microco ...
program by offering text-processing capability, and The Boss Financial Accounting System (written by John Burns), a $2495 package for CP/M users. It was one of the first accounting programs for micro-computers. In addition Lifeboat Associates started collecting and distributing user-written "free" software, initially for the
CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/Intel 8085, 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Dig ...
operating system. One of the first was
XMODEM XMODEM is a simple file transfer protocol developed as a quick hack by Ward Christensen for use in his 1977 MODEM.ASM terminal program. It allowed users to transmit files between their computers when both sides used MODEM. Keith Petersen made a ...
, which allowed reliable communication via
modem The Democratic Movement (, ; MoDem ) is a centre to centre-right political party in France, whose main ideological trends are liberalism and Christian democracy, and that is characterised by a strong pro-Europeanist stance. MoDem was establis ...
and phone line. In June 1986, Voyager Software Corp acquired Lifeboat Associates. Later in 1986, Programmer's Paradise was started by Voyager Software as a catalog marketer of technical software. In 1988, Voyager acquired Corsoft Inc., a corporate reseller founded in 1983, and combined it with the operations of the Programmer's Paradise catalog and Lifeboat Associates, both of which marketed technical software for microcomputers. In May 1995, Voyager Software Corp. changed its name to "Programmers Paradise, Inc." and consolidated its U.S. catalog and software publishing operations in a new subsidiary, Programmers Paradise Catalogs, Inc. and its wholesale distribution operations in a new subsidiary, Lifeboat Distribution, Inc. In July 1995, Programmer's Paradise completed an
initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...
of its common stock. Programmer's Paradise, Inc. changed its name to Wayside Technology Group, Inc. in August 2006.Wayside Technology Group, Inc., Form 10-K, for the fiscal year ended December 31, 200

/ref>


Products

* T/Maker (Table Maker) – one of the first
spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in c ...
programs designed for the personal computer userSusan Lammers, ''Programmers at Work'', Microsoft Press-1986. p. 198. The
Visicalc VisiCalc ("visible calculator") is the first spreadsheet computer program for personal computers, originally released for the Apple II by VisiCorp on October 17, 1979. It is considered the killer application for the Apple II, turning the microco ...
spreadsheet program was released while T/Maker was still under development.
* The Boss – Financial Accounting System * ''Software Bus-80'', also known as ''SB-80'' – a version of CP/M-80 for
8080 The Intel 8080 is Intel's second 8-bit microprocessor. Introduced in April 1974, the 8080 was an enhanced successor to the earlier Intel 8008 microprocessor, although without binary compatibility.'' Electronic News'' was a weekly trade newspa ...
/ Z80 8-bit computers * ''Software Bus-86'', also known as ''SB-86'' – a version of
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...
for
x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...
16-bit computers


See also

*
Software Bus A software bus is a software architecture model where a shared communication channel facilitates connections and communication between software modules. This makes software buses conceptually similar to the ''bus'' used in computer hardware for in ...


References


External links

* {{Official website, www.waysidetechnology.com, name=Official website of Wayside Technology Defunct software companies of the United States Companies established in the 1970s 1970s establishments in the United States