The Software Toolworks (commonly abbreviated as Toolworks) was an American software and video game developer based in Novato, California. The company was founded by Walt Bilofsky in 1980 out of his Sherman Oaks garage, which he converted into an office, to develop software for the Heathkit H89 microcomputer. It quickly expanded into video games, releasing Airport and MyChess in 1980; other notable games include Chessmaster 2000, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, and Mario Is Missing!. Toolworks merged with its distributor, Software Country, in 1986 and, after going public in 1988, acquired IntelliCreations, DS Technologies, and Mindscape. By 1994, Toolworks employed 600 people and had a revenue of . In May that year, it was acquired by Pearson plc for , which converted it to bear the Mindscape identity by November.
History
Early years (1979–1982) The Software Toolworks was founded by programmer Walt Bilofsky, who, after studying at Cornell University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), had worked for the Institute for Defense Analyses, as a programmer for RAND Corporation, and as a consultant. In 1979, he acquired and assembled a Heathkit H89 microcomputer; he found that the microcomputer lacked important software and thus began developing new software and ports of his own, including a fullscreen editor and a compiler for the C programming language entitled C/80, the latter based on Ron Cain's public-domain compiler Small-C. Bilofsky subsequently contacted the Heath Company, which made the Heathkit series of microcomputers, to have it market his software and, in response, was told that the operating system and the BASIC programming language Heathkit microcomputers came with were sufficient. He advertised his software in BUSS, a Heathkit hobbyist newsletter, in 1980, quickly receiving orders for his software. Bilofsky eventually adopted the name "The Software Toolworks", using it publicly for the first time with an advertisement submitted to the magazine Byte in June 1980. He converted his garage in Sherman Oaks, California, to a two-room office, outfitting it with a disk duplicator, shelving, and a shipping area. This office was later relocated into a garden shed. By the end of the year, Toolworks had entered the video game business, having published Airport, an air traffic control game by Jim Gillogly, and MyChess, a chess game by Dave Kittinger. This continued in 1981, with Robert Wesson developing a clone of Pac-Man, the game Munchkin, and a port of Invaders for the H89, and Bilofksy adapting the artificial intelligence psychiatrist ELIZA. Other early non-game software included the spreadsheet editor Zencalc (later replaced by MyCalc), the text editor PIE, the text formatting application TEXT, and the spelling checker SPELL.
One of Toolworks' major releases was a port of Adventure, a text adventure game developed by William Crowther in 1975 and later expanded by Don Woods. Gillogly made Bilofsky aware of the game and, by 1982, was able to get the game running on an H89 using Bilofsky's C/80 compiler. Although the game was in the public domain, Bilofsky decided to release an official version with the approval of Crowther and Woods. This version was expanded so that, at the end of the game, the player is admitted into a fictional "Wizards' Guild" and given a password that could be posted to Toolworks in return for a "Certificate of Wizardness", underwritten by Crowther and Woods, and signed with the Toolworks corporate seal, the only time this seal was used. The game was released in 1982 and came with a manual packaged in a Ziploc bag.