for the organization formerly known as the broederbond see afrikanerbond . br derbund software inc. fate purchased by the learning company successor the learning company founded 1980 defunct 1998 headquarters eugene oregon san rafael california novato california key people doug carlston gary carlston cathy carlston brisbois edmund auer products computer software and video games website www.broderbund.com br derbund software inc. was an american maker of video games educational software and productivity tools . br derbund is best known for the 8 bit computer game hits choplifter lode runner karateka and prince of persia all of which originated on the apple ii as well as the print shop originally for printing signs and banners on dot matrix printers and the myst and carmen sandiego games . the company was founded in eugene oregon and moved to san rafael california then later to novato california . 1 br derbund was purchased by the learning company in 1998 . many of br derbund s software titles such as the print shop printmaster and mavis beacon are still published under the name broderbund o instead of . games released by the revived broderbund are distributed by encore inc. broderbund with an o instead of the character is now the brand name for riverdeep s graphic design productivity and edutainment titles such as the print shop carmen sandiego mavis beacon teaches typing the living books series and reader rabbit titles in addition to publishing software for other companies notably zone labs zonealarm . contents 1 corporate history 2 products 3 etymology and pronunciation 4 see also 5 references 6 external links corporate history edit br derbund was founded by brothers doug and gary carlston in 1980 2 for the purpose of marketing galactic empire 3 a video game that doug carlston had created in 1979 . their sister cathy joined the company a year later . 4 before founding the company doug was a lawyer 4 and gary had held a number of jobs including teaching swedish at an american college . 4 galactic empire had many names taken from african languages ; a group of merchants was named broederbond afrikaans for association of brothers . to emphasize its family origin while avoiding a connection with the white supremacist south african organization of the same name the carlstons altered the spelling when naming their company br derbund . 5 by early 1984 infoworld estimated that br derbund was tied with human engineered software as the world s tenth largest microcomputer software company and largest entertainment software company with 13 million in 1983 sales . 6 that year it took over the assets of the well regarded but financially troubled synapse software . although intending to keep it running as a business they were unable to make money from synapse s products and closed it down after a year . 7 br derbund s the print shop software produced signs and greeting cards . br derbund started discussions with unison world about creating a version that would run on dos . the two companies could not agree on a contract but unison world developed a dos product with similar function and a similar user interface . broderbund sued for infringement of their copyright . broderbund v. unison 1986 became a landmark case in establishing that the look and feel of a software product could be subject to copyright protection . 8 sierra on line and br derbund ended merger discussions in march 1991 . 9 by this time br derbund was developing most of its software as opposed to publishing software others had developed ; doug carlston stated the company needed to control our own sources to control our future . after an unsuccessful initial public offering in 1987 10 it became a public company in november 1991 ; 11 its nasdaq symbol was brod . 12 when br derbund went public the print shop comprised 33 % of total revenue and the carmen sandiego series 26 % . 13 the company s stock price and market capitalization climbed steadily to a maximum of nearly us 80 share in late 1995 and then fell steadily in the face of continued losses for a number of years . br derbund acquired pc globe in july 1992 . 14 the learning company purchased br derbund in 1998 for about us 420 million in stock . 2 br derbund had initially attempted to purchase the original the learning company in 1995 15 16 but was outbid by softkey who purchased the learning company for 606 million in cash and then adopted its name . the learning company then bought br derbund in 1998 and in a move to rationalize costs the learning company promptly terminated 500 employees at br derbund the same year 17 representing 42 % of the company s workforce . doug carlston explained that in a bid to roll up broderbund the learning company utilised one of their previous acquisitions to weaken the company s stronghold over the industry . they allegedly gave a rebate to mindscape s printmaster a direct competitor to broderbund s print shop that was more than the product was worth 18 in 1999 the combined company was purchased by mattel for 3.6 billion . 19 mattel reeled from the financial impact of this transaction and jill e. barad the ceo ended up being forced out in a climate of investor outrage . 20 mattel then gave away the learning company in september 2000 to gores technology group a private acquisitions firm for a share of whatever gores could obtain by selling the company . in 2001 gores sold the learning company s entertainment holdings to ubisoft and most of the other holdings including the br derbund name to irish company riverdeep . 21 many of br derbund s games such as the myst series are published by ubisoft . the broderbund line of products is published by encore inc under license from riverdeep . 22 23 under the terms of the agreement encore now manages the broderbund family of products as well as broderbund s direct to consumer business . in may 2010 encore acquired the assets of punch software 24 in 2014 doug carlston donated a collection of br derbund s business records software and a collection of games that includes myst prince of persia and where in the world is carmen sandiego to the strong national museum of play . the strong national museum of play forwarded the collection to the icheg museum for preservation . 25 products edit main article list of br derbund products br derbund scored an early hit with the game galactic empire written by doug carlston for the trs 80 . the company became a powerhouse in the educational and entertainment software markets with titles like fantavision choplifter apple panic lode runner karateka wings of fury prince of persia the battle of olympus in the 1st degree the last express where in the world is carmen sandiego the guardian legend and myst which stayed the highest grossing home video game for years . the company s first title for the apple ii tank command was written by the third carlston brother professor donal carlston br derbund was easily one of the most dominant publishers in the computer market of the 1980s having released video games for virtually all major computer systems in the united states . 26 like most early computer gaming developers br derbund began as an apple ii focused company and began expanding to other platforms as time went along . they released ibm pc ports of a few games very early on however not until after 1985 would br derbund seriously develop for pc compatibles . due to their strong focus on education titles they were one of a few devs to actively support the apple iigs in the late 1980s . some of the more popular br derbund titles were licensed to japanese and european devs and ported to systems in those regions . during the 1990s br derbund mostly concentrated on educational titles for pcs and macintoshes with a few forays into rpgs and strategy games . br derbund published the print shop series of desktop publishing making programs 27 family tree maker 28 a genealogy program supported by hundreds of cds of public genealogy data 3d home architect 29 a program for designing and visualizing family homes and banner mania a program for designing and printing multi page banners . by the end of the 1980s games represented only a few percent of br derbund s annual sales which by then were heavily focused in the productivity arena and early education and learning areas . just before being acquired by the learning company br derbund spun off its living books series by forming a joint venture with random house publishing . 30 despite the success and quality of the living books series the joint venture was marginally successful and was dissolved with the learning company deal . for a brief time br derbund was involved in the video game console market when it published a few games for the nintendo entertainment system nes through its new ventures division . 31 all of broderbund s games for the nes including the port of its own franchises lode runner spelunker and raid on bungeling bay were developed by third party japanese companies . br derbund published some titles that were produced by companies that didn t have a north american subsidiary such as compile s the guardian legend imagineer s the battle of olympus and legacy of the wizard the fourth installment in nihon falcom s dragon slayer series . br derbund also developed and marketed an ill fated motion sensitive nes controller device called the u force which was operated without direct physical contact between the player and the device . 32 in 1990 br derbund sold its new ventures division including manufacturing equipment inventory and assets to then fledgling company thq . 31 33 br derbund released in the united states arsys software s 1986 third person action rpg shooter wibarm 34 br derbund briefly had a board game division which published don carlston s personal preference along with several board game versions of its video games . etymology and pronunciation edit the word br derbund is not an actual word in any language but is a somewhat loose translation of band of brothers into a mixture of danish german and swedish . 35 the in br derbund was used partially as a play on the norwegian danish letter but was mainly referencing the slashed zero found in mainframes terminals and early personal computers . 36 the three crowns above the logo are also a reference to the lesser national coat of arms of sweden . the company s name was pronounced bru d rb nd 37 instead of the popularly used bro d rb nd . see also edit list of companies based in oregon red orb entertainment broderbund s game publishing division later supported by mindscape references edit about broderbund . br derbund . april 12 1997 . retrieved on june 3 2011 . br derbund software inc. 500 redwood blvd. novato california 94948 a b pelline jeff june 22 1998 . the learning co. buys broderbund . cnet networks . p. 1 . retrieved 2008 11 26 . company broderbund software . computer history museum . retrieved 2008 11 27 . a b c uston ken september 1984 . a family affair ; behind the scenes at broderbund . creative computing . 10 9 1 . wilson johnny l. november 1991 . a history of computer games . computer gaming world . p. 10 . retrieved 18 november 2013 . caruso denise 1984 04 02 . company strategies boomerang . infoworld . pp. 80 83 . retrieved 10 february 2015 . hague james ed . 1997 . steve hales . halcyon days interviews with classic computer and video game programmers . dadgum . retrieved 2014