At the 1985 summer Consumer Electronics Show, Jack Tramiel’s Atari Corporation demonstrated a CD-ROM drive running the Grolier’s KnowldegeDisc, a digital version of the Grolier’s encyclopedia based on software created by Gary Kildall’s Activenture, Inc. At the time, Tramiel and his team said they would soon ship a working CD-ROM drive for its new Atari 520ST computer that would cost no more than $500.

It was a ludicrous promise. The companies actually developing CD-ROM players in late 1985, such as Sony, Hitachi, and Philips, were all quoting retail prices of between $700 and $1,000. Even Tramiel knew that he wouldn’t be able to deliver a $500 CD-ROM drive in 1985. That didn’t stop him from continuing to promise it in 1986 or 1987 or 1988, however.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, WordStar was the gold standard for word processors on microcomputers. The publisher of WordStar, MicroPro International, was one of the first successful computer software companies. But as the early CP/M machines gave way to the MS-DOS-based IBM Personal Computers, WordStar quickly lost market share to an upstart rival, WordPerfect. To add insult to injury, WordStar also faced a split in its loyal customer base thanks to a clone backed by longtime Computer Chronicles contributor George Morrow. While WordStar survived, it never again thrived.

Ethan Johnson, a Chicago-based computer and video game historian, recently released the sixth episode in his Play History series, which chronicles the origins of video gaming all the way back to the 1940s. In this most recent episode, Johnson looks at the development of the first dedicated computer monitors in the 1970s and the pioneering work done at two organizations, Xerox PARC and the Stanford Research Institute, which should be familiar to any viewer of early Computer Chronicles episodes.

In February 1987, Compute! magazine published the first hands-on look at the Amiga 2000. Released just 18 months after the original Amiga, Commodore International’s new model was a spec bump rather than a next-generation computer. Still, Compute! assistant editor Philip I. Nelson seemed duly impressed. He praised the 2000’s low price ($1,500 without a monitor) and the presence of multiple IBM PC-compatible expansion slots. Commodore even offered an optional “Bridge” card enabling the Amiga 2000 to directly run PC software. Nelson saw this as critical for attracting “professionals who bring their work home.”

In 1985, Broderbund released Science Toolkit, a unique combination of hardware and software that enabled students to conduct simple experiments using an Apple II computer. Science Toolkit was an early example of ‘Microcomputer Based Labs’ or MBL, a concept first developed by Dr. Robert Tinker, a legend in the field of science education. While Tinker’s own efforts to commercially develop MBL–later known as ‘probeware’–fell short, Broderbund enjoyed success with Science Toolkit in the late 1980s, thanks largely to the company’s ability to market and distribute Apple II products to the educational market. This marketing effort included not one, but two glowing reviews for Science Toolkit on Computer Chronicles from Stewart Cheifet and Paul Schindler, respectively.

The January 1988 Macworld Expo in San Francisco was the second industry trade show to merit its own Computer Chronicles episode after the Las Vegas COMDEX show. Chronicles had devoted segments to earlier editions of Macworld–including the inaugural event in 1985–but this was the first time that the semi-annual gathering received full-episode coverage. No doubt this reflected the growing interest in the Macintosh platform, bolstered by the release of the Macintosh II and Macintosh SE the previous year as well as everyone’s favorite new software middleware product, HyperCard.

Computer Chronicles began 1988 with a focus on desktop scanners and digital imaging software, a field still in its earliest stages at the personal computer level. Stewart Cheifet opened this episode by showing Gary Kildall a portable scanner that used Xerox copier technology. He pulled the scanner over a printed page, and it produced a CVS receipt-like printout right away.

Cheifet noted that everyone seemed to be into scanning these days. Why the sudden fascination with this technology? Kildall said desktop publishing was a prime reason. People wanted to incorporate more graphics into their text documents. A second reason was the growing popularity of fax machines. But the big movement was towards the digital representation of information in electronic form. That made it a lot easier to assemble information, put it together, alter it, and publish it. It was simply a more flexible way to deal with information.

In the late 1970s, Will Harvey worked a summer paper route to help pay for his first computer, a Commodore PET. After trading up to an Apple II a few years later he developed Music Construction Set, which became one of the earliest hits for a small software startup called Electronic Arts. Harvey appeared on one of the first Computer Chronicles episodes to demonstrate his program while still in high school. He went on to a long career in the tech industry, while Electronic Arts used its “construction set” brand to establish itself as an innovator in entertainment software for microcomputers.

You always have to be cautious when declaring something was a “first” in video game history. But I think that Stewart Cheifet and Gary Kildall held what might have been the first nationally televised LAN party at the start of this December 1987 Computer Chronicles episode, the second in a two-part series on computer games. The dynamic duo demonstrated Falcon, an F-16 combat flight simulator published by Spectrum Holobyte. Cheifet explained the two PCs on the desk were networked so they could “see” each other. There was also a “flight recorder” built-in to the game so that if either player crashed, they could go back and see what they did wrong.

Even in the late 1980s, two of the biggest names in third-party game development were Electronic Arts and Activision. As of this writing in July 2023, EA has a market valuation of around $38 billion. Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard, the successor to the original Activision, Inc., is in the final stages of a $75 billion acquisition by Microsoft. Of course, neither EA nor Activision were worth anywhere near that much at the time of this next Computer Chronicles episode from December 1987.