The Print Shop

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The Print Shop
Developer David Balsam, Martin Kahn
Company Broderbund Software
Publisher Broderbund Software
Release 1984
Licence full
Platform C64, C128, Apple II, Atari, PC
Genre Graphics, Desktop Publishing
Operation Keyboard
Media Diskette
Language(s) Language:english
Information

The Print Shop is a desktop publishing package released for several platforms including the Commodore 64, Apple II and Atari 8-bit systems. It includes libraries of clip art and templates that allow users to easily create signs, posters, and banners, which can then be printed. The initial versions were designed for use with dot-matrix printers, but subsequent versions supported more advanced printer technologies.

The Print Shop became extremely popular, partly due to it allowing both user and imported graphics, thereby expanding its library. By 1988 it had sold more than one million copies, although many more pirated copies existed. Many computer clubs offered additional Print Shop graphics as part of their disk distribution package, and magazines sometimes included disks with extra graphics libraries.

There were additional disks to go with The Print Shop:

  • The Print Shop Companion (by Roland Gustafsson) - Which included font and border editors and other utilities
  • Graphics disks - Additional graphics released by Broderbund and others

The software was noted for its ease of use, and although it was supplied with a manual it was hardly required, if at all. This, no doubt, was at least partly responsible for the very high level of piracy it experienced, sharing the dubious honour of being one of the two most pirated C64 programs of 1985 (the other being Ghostbusters). However, despite this, sales remained strong and by 1992 it accounted for 29% of Broderbund's revenue.

Reception[edit | edit source]

A reviewer for the computer magazine Ahoy! called it: "one of the best thought out, easiest to use packages I've come across".

Later Versions[edit | edit source]

The software's popularity was such that in 1988 an improved version, The New Print Shop, was published for the Apple II and MS-DOS. This was followed in 1993 by Print Shop Deluxe for the Apple Mac, MS-DOS, and Windows. Several updated versions and additions followed, as well as further graphics libraries.

Updates have continued to be released, including 64-bit versions for both macOS and Windows.

Links[edit | edit source]


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