[grunt]
[music: synth "Silent Night"]
[fizz]
[sipping]
Ahhh...
[typing]
[music fades out]
Greetings.
As in greeting cards.
They're a pretty inseparable part of the Christmas tradition by this point, and
have been for a really long time,
but one thing that I really don't get a chance to talk about
normally is digital greeting cards.
And you know, you might not think of them as being a really big deal, and
maybe they aren't so much anymore, at least dedicated software for them,
but at one point they really were.
And today we're gonna take a look at a company called Thoughtware
that has a really interesting story where
really, there shouldn't be one.
And yet there is.
Because Christmas.
Thoughtware, Inc., was a software company based in Coconut Grove, Florida,
and in their early days, they were the last company you would expect to sell Christmas programs.
Thoughtware 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 this stuff was expensive,
costing anywhere from $350 to $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 it featured a selection of animated sequences, accompanied by holiday music
and a nice little Christmas greeting at the end.
It was only meant to be a token of thanks
and was even considered somewhat frivolous by management,
but the reaction from employees and clients was hugely positive.
It got such a great response that Thoughtware decided to take a gamble on selling it,
and in 1985 they reworked the software, titling it the "Jingle Disk"
and sold it in stores for $9.95.
One key addition to this version was a simple greeting card maker,
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 computer users took note.
Over half a million "Jingle Disks" sold in the first year,
and users were clamoring for more.
Seizing opportunity,
Thoughtware founded a new division called Hi Tech Expressions,
and made more sohpisticated card programs
like "CardWare"
and "HeartWare."
to cash in on this new market.
And before long, digital greeting cards and computer games
were the company's bread and butter,
the Thoughtware name was retired,
and Hi Tech Expressions became the brand they were remembered by.
This is the 1986 release of "Jingle Disk" here
and is the first one released under the Hi Tech Expressions banner.
It's quite the humble little package,
featuring only some basic information on the back,
and single 360K 5¼" floppy disk inside.
This one apparently belonged to the LaSalle County Station Apple User Group
in Morris, Illinois, in point in its life.
I wonder if anybody from the group will see this video.
If so, then hey! I have your disk!
"Jingle Disk" begins with a creepy jack-in-the-box clown
providing you with greetings of the seasonal variety,
or at least it does in the 1985 version,
since there are a whole slew of animations
removed from the 1986 Hi Tech release,
presumably to make more room for more involved Christmas card printing options.
So we'll just take a look at the '85 version for this first part,
which is the "Jingle Disk Christmas Story."
Our tale takes place on Christmas Eve in Suburbia,
where snow pixels are falling as fast as the CPU allows them to,
and we zoom in on the one house with owners obnoxious enough
to line their entire abode with those lights that blink so frantically
that they really should prop up an epilepsy trigger warning on the front lawn.
Then out of nowhere,
a gust of wind blows open the flimsy front door,
quadrupling their heating costs instantly,
and serving as a poignant reminder of the benefits of installing a storm door.
We then wander inside,
because it's technically not breaking and entering,
and see that they've gotten rid of the dog
since the original animation from Thoughtware.
Instead, there's a cat on the floor,
and she's just enjoying the heat of the fireplace
and ignoring everything else, as cats tend to do.
[high-pitched voice] "We'll have none of that,"
says the mouse wearing strange pajamas.
MOUSE: "I've got a toy soldier taken from the previous program
that I can wind up and wreak havoc with. Mwahahahaha!"
While Weird Mouse puts the soldier on his way
and mocks him behind his back,
the soldier then marches forward and pokes the cat in the nose,
waking her up like a total inconsiderate jerk.
Even though the cat doesn't seem to care,
Weird Mouse runs back to the safety of the candy cane ornament,
just in time for his engineer friend in the toy train to drive by.
MOUSE: "Ha! Look at me! Am I not gangster?"
Like a total gangster,
Weird Mouse drops into the caboose like nothing happened.
Because nothing happened. The cat still hasn't even moved.
Finally, the cat wanders over that way,
wearing an expression conveying all kinds of dissatisfaction about her life choices up to that point.
But never fear!
Santa Claus with boxing gloves is here.
SANTA: "Ho ho ho! I sure do like boxing!"
The jolly old elf plops down some fish and cheese
and then hovers his hands in the air above them
like he's just had a massive brain fart and can't recover.
Weird Mouse and the cat then unwrap their gifts and stuff their faces,
nomming away as we head back out into the snow.
Looking up in the sky,
we see Santa and his reindeer
attempting to defy the laws of physics,
while Rudolph up front is bleeding profusely from his face!
Oh my word, it's so tragic.
Somebody please help Rudolph! He's gonna bleed out!
And on that bombshell, Merry Christmas to all and to all Good Night!
What a nice story.
Now on subsequent "Jingle Disk" releases,
the animations are all truncated,
which is pretty unfortunate.
Although they did drop in a feature
where you can add a customized message to the end
and hey, if there's anything that makes anything better,
it's customized messages, am I right?
Moving on to the 1986 version now
because it's time to move on to menu option number two,
and oh MAN, I can sense the excitement!
Here, you can create a greeting disk
which just writes the animated story to a disk with a custom message,
and print greeting cards, which does that.
Chances are it'll print without any configuration needed,
unless you're the crazy person that own an Okidata 92
and has to be a printing party pooper.
Next, you can pick either a full-page or quarter-page printout.
One folds into quarters, the other doesn't fold at all.
Either way, you get to pick from several options,
allowing you to customize each and every one of them
with your own brand of special greetings.
And man, I loved this kind of thing as a kid!
I just loved it!
Honestly, one of the things I spent the most time with as a youngster
was "Print Shop Deluxe," so if I had this,
I would have tried each and every combination of pictures, words and printing styles.
And yes, just like what happened in real life,
I would have gotten chewed out by my parents
for wasting ink with this, but that's okay!
Because I've got printouts to show for it.
Just look at these amazing dot matrix creations.
They may look like total crap
and you may need to wear ear protection while printing, but dude!
This stuff was my jam!
Surely, these are pieces to be proud of,
and send it to friends and family with confidence.
Just fold the quarter-page printouts into little cards, and there you go!
I don't know what you're supposed to do with the full pages
except hand them to someone in person,
or fold it in a way that ruins your fine piece of art,
but here they are just in case.
And that's pretty much it for "Jingle Disk."
I love these little programs,
and this one actually has some significance in being one of the earliest
to really take off commercially.
It was also ported to the Commodore 64, Apple II, and Atari 8-bit home computers,
so keep an eye out for any copies.
It may not be the most exciting thing nowadays to some,
but to others it's a nifty little treasure
that has a cool story behind it.
And a cool story in it.
And hey, it's a Christmas computer thing,
and Christmas computer things are just special.
[music: synth "White Christmas"]
Also need to give a quick shout-out to a couple of Jims.
Two different Jims helped me with this video.
One of them sent me the "Jingle Disk"
and the other helped me get one of the versions of them running.
So thank you very much to Jim S. and Jim L.
And if you're neither Jim, well hello anyway.
Thanks for watching my video and I hope you enjoyed this.
And if you did,
there are other Christmas videos that I have done in the past
and more coming in the future,
so subscribing, or just checking out my channel, would be a good thing to do,
if you, uh, want more.
And if you want even more,
then you can follow and interact with me on Twitter and Facebook
for all sorts of other stuff throughout the week,
and also support the show monetarily on Patreon.
If that is your kind of thing,
go to that page in order to see some more details.
And as always, thank you very much for watching.