T/Maker
 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification.(September 2017) |
| Developer(s) | Peter Roizen |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 1979 |
| Operating system | CP/M,TRSDOS,MS-DOS |
| Type | Spreadsheet |
T/Maker(Table Maker) was one of the firstspreadsheetprograms designed for the personal computer user[1]and released byPeter Roizenin 1979. The application ran onCP/M,TRSDOS,and later onMS-DOScomputers. T/Maker was originally distributed byLifeboat Associatesof New York.
T/Maker took a different approach to most other spreadsheets: instead of embedding formulas in each cell, formulas were defined on a per-row and per-column basis in the margins.[2]
Although T/Maker was released six months afterVisiCalc,it was perhaps[vague]the first application to provide an 'office' suite approach to data. Tables could be used in databases or spreadsheets and were accessible in 'word' type documents.
T/Maker company
[edit]| Founded | 1983,inMountain View, California[3] |
|---|---|
| Founder | Peter Roizen,Heidi Roizen |
| Defunct | 1994 |
| Fate | Acquired byDeluxe Corporation[4] |
Key people | |
| Products |
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The T/Maker Company was an earlypersonal computersoftware company, formed in 1983 in order to marketCP/MandMS-DOSprograms that had originally been published by 3rd party publishing houses. They expanded into theApple Macintoshmarket, releasing the ClickArt line ofclip art.Other products includedWriteNowon the Mac andNeXTplatforms.
In 1983 T/Maker Company was incorporated inMountain View, CaliforniabyHeidi Roizen–Peter's sister and a then-recentStanford University Graduate School of Businessgraduate – who became its CEO.[3]
T/Maker Company went on to publish its own line of integrated applications, and also products by others intended for DOS and Windows computers as well as theAppleMacintosh, including ClickArt, the fifth software title available for the Mac. It was also one of the first companies to offer fonts for the Macintosh.[3]By 1988, it no longer sold the product of its namesake, T/Maker.[3]
Other notable T/Maker products include Personal Publisher, a consumer-oriented desktop publishing application for the PC (acquired bySoftware Publishing Corporationin 1986), SmartBundle, an "office" styled bundle of major applications, Vroombooks, a multimedia storybook, and the Macintosh word processorWriteNow,(which it licensed from NeXT in 1985 and ultimately sold toWordStarin 1993[5]).
Heidi and business partner/chairman Royal Farros purchased T/Maker from Peter in 1986 and continuedbootstrappinguntil 1989, when it becameventure capitalfirmHummer Winblad Venture Partners’ first venture investment.Ann Winbladbecame a director of the company at that time.Tim Draperof Draper Fisher led the company’s second round in 1993 and also joined the board.
T/Maker was acquired in 1994 byDeluxe Corporation.[4]Both Heidi and Royal left the company in 1996, Heidi becoming VP of Worldwide Developer Relations at Apple Computer and Royal founding and becoming CEO of an online print shop,iPrint.
T/Maker’s remaining products were ultimately acquired byBroderbund,who continues to market and expand the ClickArt line.
References
[edit]- ^Lammers, Susan M (1986).Programmers at Work.Microsoft Press.p. 198.ISBN0914845713.TheVisicalcspreadsheet program was released while T/Maker was still under development.
- ^Petern McWilliams (1985-01-13)."Software That's Truly Easy To Use".Chicago Tribune.Retrieved2016-06-24.
- ^abcdBorrell, Jerry (January 1988)."An interview with Heidi Rozen, President of T/Maker".Macworld.Vol. 5, no. 1. p. 73.
- ^ab"T/Maker Acquired".Macworld.Vol. 11, no. 9. September 1994. p. 33.Retrieved12 August2021.
- ^"WordStar Buys WriteNow".MacUser.Vol. 9, no. 6. June 1993. p. 35.Retrieved12 August2021.
