For Christmas of 1984,
Thoughtware whipped a seasonal greeting card
in the form of a simple computer program
to be used within the company.
It was so simple, that no one could have anticipated that a handful of years later,
it would propel Thoughtware to rebrand as Hi Tech Expressions
and publish games for some of the biggest franchises around.
Even more unthinkable is that the entire company would be gone
without so much as a whimper just a few years after that.
What happened?
This is LGR Tech Tales,
where we take a look of noteworthy stories of technological inspiration,
failure,
and everything in between.
This episode tells the Christmasy tale
of the largely forgotten software publisher
Hi Tech Expressions.
Founded in 1984,
Thoughtware, Inc. was a software company
based in Coconut Grove, Florida.
Under the leadership of founder Jack Levine,
they produced a management decision support
and training software series,
with such exciting titles as Assessing Personal Management Skills,
Defining Goals and Objectives,
and Managing Time Effectively.
And while they would later become known for their budget releases,
this early stuff was expensive,
with software packages costing anywhere from $350-500 each.
Then in 1984,
as a token of appreciation for the company's employees and clients,
they put together a floppy disk
titled "Seasons Greetings from Thoughtware."
This was a simple little program
that not only functioned as an advertisement for their training software,
but featured a selection of animated sequences
accompanied by holiday music
and a Christmas greeting at the end.
It was only intended to be a friendly one-off gesture
and was even considered somewhat frivolous by management.
Besides, they were focused on getting their latest sales rep training package to the market,
aptly titled "Sell! Sell! Sell!"
But even with a title as captivating as that one,
the response to their simplistic little holiday program
was overwhelmingly positive.
It got such a good response that Thoughtware decided to take a gamble on selling it.
And in 1985, they reworked the software,
titling it "Jingle Disk"
and sold it in stores
for $9.95.
With one killer feature added to this new version:
a greeting card creator,
which allowed users to customize a pre-made image
and print it out themselves.
Normally, you'd need a far more expensive print program to accomplish something like this,
and home computer users quickly took note of the added value.
Over half a million Jingle Disks sold in the first year on the market,
far surpassing the sales of their more serious training software,
and their new user base was clamoring for more.
So in 1986, Thoughtware founded a new division in New York City
to create similar expressive products,
cleverly titled Thoughtware Expressions.
Under the direction of Henry A. Kaplan,
this new brand produced more sophisticated card production applications,
like CardWare,
PartyWare,
and HeartWare.
However, the interests of home computer users
were moving faster than they could keep up,
and the company was soon struggling financially.
So in a bid for attention,
they managed to convince Atari to donate 30 computers
to ten different children's hospitals around the country.
And part of this deal was that Thoughtware would then match this with their own donation
of greeting card software,
presumably so that it would provide a positive story for news outlets to cover,
while also getting more eyes on Thoughtware's products.
Unfortunately, it wasn't enough,
with layoffs and restructuring now on the agenda.
And in the midst of all this,
they adopted a new moniker once again:
Hi Tech Expressions.
Part of the reason for this rebranding was undoubtedly tied
to the decision to branch out from greeting cards to computer games,
starting with PC ports of children's games
like Sesame Street's Astro Grover
and Letter-Go-Round.
These were games that already existed on other computers
like the Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64,
but with the booming popularity of IBM PC compatibles,
Hi Tech Expressions was happy to take advantage.
And with this,
Thoughtware's Hi Tech Expressions brand seemed to find its true calling.
So much so that the previous business software division of Thoughtware soon ceased operations.
Now they were going all in
with a slew of licensed children's games,
like Disney's Matterhorn Screamer
and Chase on Tom Sawyer's Island,
Jim Henson's Muppet Adventure: Chaos at the Carnival,
and some game show games like Win, Lose or Draw.
And then just as the '90s were about to begin,
Ninja Gaiden arrived on home computers in the USA,
thanks to Hi Tech Expressions reaching an agreement
with developer Tecmo.
Still, these were mostly distribution deals,
and no games were actually created from scratch by Hi Tech
until 1990.
And that first game of theirs
was Mega Man.
Somehow, Hi Tech got the exclusive rights from Capcom
to develop their own unique adaptation
of the hit Nintendo Entertainment System game.
So in conjuction with Stephen J. Rosner of Rosner Labs,
they developed this bizarre Mega Man game
for IBM-compatible PCs.
And, uh...
it wasn't great.
But it was the only Mega Man game on the PC then,
so it did well enough to merit a sequel
in 1992,
confusingly titled Mega Man 3.
And, yes, they skipped right over Mega Man 2 on PC
and went straight to calling it number 3.
Mega Man 5 was already out on the NES at that point, too.
So the title was likely an attempt to convince people
into thinking it was that much better of a game than their first one,
even though it wasn't.
At this point, Hi Tech Expressions
was becoming known for two things:
cheap children's games
and crappy licensed games.
And it seems they were rather accepting of this,
and pretty successful with it, too.
So much so that they began publishing their own NES cartridges.
With this, Hi Tech continued their routine of producing subpar games
for young boys and girls on the system,
but they also took the opportunity to pare those
with more adolescent and adult-oriented releases
like MTV's Remote Control,
The Hunt for Red October,
and The Chessmaster.
In addition to this, they distributed games like Street Fighter II on the PC,
moved on to producing games for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis systems,
known for having an older audience,
and were even in talks to create a game
based on the TV show "Twin Peaks,"
all in an attempt to further capture the attention of older gamers.
And with all this came one more name change,
this time to Hi Tech Entertainment in 1993,
seemingly in a last ditch effort to make people realize
they made stuff besides Barbie and Mickey Mouse games.
But the writing was on the wall,
signified loud and clear
with founder Henry Kaplan leaving Hi Tech in 1995
to become president and COO of Philips Media Software.
Hi Tech's history after this is pretty much non-existent.
They just sort of fizzled out.
Their final games were released in 1994,
some of them like Bobby's World were canceled in 1995,
and their planned support of the 32X Sega Genesis add-on
never came to fruition.
Hi Tech Entertainment's doors unceremoniously closed
sometime in 1997,
with their trademarks and name being abandoned and dissolved
by proclamation of the State of New York
by 1999.
There's no doubt the venture of Thoughtware and Hi Tech Expressions
began in a place of holiday cheer and money-making excitement,
but it seemingly didn't take long for complacency to take hold
to the point where nothing they released really stood out much at all.
And if it did,
it was for the wrong reasons.
When a company like this rests on its laurels for years,
they're bound to fail,
especially in the world
of high tech.
If you enjoyed this episode of LGR Tech Tales,
then I'm sure you'll get a kick out of my video
on the various versions of Jingle Disk itself,
showing it much more in-depth.
So click on any of these things right here if you'd like to.
And as always, thank you very much for watching.