How a Christmas spawned a video game company: The Story of Hi-Tech Expressions

Well Its Christmas time, and for today's blog, Im taking a look at a simple computer program that not only became an unexpected hit, but encouraged a software company to switch its focus completely before disappearing all together after just a couple years. 

The program is called Jingle Disk, and it was created by ThoughtWare Inc. So what was Jingle Disk? and how did it it lead its company to unexpected success and failure?

1984, Coconut Grove, Florida. A company called ThoughtWare Inc. got their start making management decision support and training software for the Apple II and IBM PC. although their software sold in decent numbers, it was expensive, costing $350 to $500 (or about $1,034 to $1,477 today adjusted for inflation).

Then for Christmas of that year, To show appreciation for their employees and customers, they put together a floppy disk called "Seasons Greetings from Thoughtware."

The original Seasons Greetings from Thoughtware disk

It was a simple program that not only functioned as an advertisement for their training software, but featured a selection of animated sequences accompanied by Christmas music and a greeting at the end. It was only intended to be a friendly one-off gesture and wasn't considered to value much to management, as they were focused on getting their sales rep training package to the market "Sell! Sell! Sell!", The response to the program was overwhelmingly positive. So much so, they decided to take a gamble on selling it, and in 1985, they reworked the software, calling it "Jingle Disk" and retailed for $9.95.

The Apple II version of Jingle Disk (1985)

It was identical to the original with one new edition: a greeting card creator. The timing could not have been better, as Brouderbund Software's "The Print Shop" had been introduced the year before and the first consumer laser printer and Aldus PageMaker had recently been brought to market triggering the desktop publishing revolution, causing printers and software like CAD Packages and greeting card makers exploding in popularity. Half a million copies sold, well above the sales of their training software, resulting in Thoughtware creating a spinoff company in New York in 1986 called ThoughtWare Expressions, Making similar more advanced card making programs, like CardWare, PartyWare, HeartWare. 

Left to right: CardWare, PartyWare, HeartWare (1986)

However, the interests of home computer users was moving fast and the company was soon struggling financially. So in 1988, They renamed the company Hi-Tech Expressions and diversified into computer games. 

Hi-Tech Expressions catalog (1988)

They started with PC ports of children's games like Sesame Street's Astro Grover and Letter-Go-Round. These games already released on other computers like the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit line, but with the rise of PC compatibles, Hi Tech Expressions had an advantage. the relative success lead to Thoughtware shutting down all together and Hi Tech went all out with a number of licensed children's games, like Disney's Matterhorn Screamer, Chase on Tom Sawyer's Island, Jim Henson's Muppet Adventure: Chaos at the Carnival, and Win, Lose or Draw. 

Left to right: Disney's Matterhorn Screamer (1988), Win, Lose or Draw (1988), Chase on Tom Sawyer's Island (1988), and Jim Henson's Muppet Adventure: Chaos at the Carnival (1989).

By 1990, Hi tech had started to port popular arcade games to the PC like Techmos Ninja Gaiden, but also managed to make their very first in house game, Mega Man. 

Left to right: Ninja Gaiden (1990) and MegaMan (1990).

Capcom Managed to give Hi Tech the exclussive rights to make a version of the game for the PC, So in conjuction with Stephen J. Rosner of Rosner Labs, they developed a unique port of Mega Man game for IBM-compatible PCs. 

 MegaMan for MS-DOS (1990).

Unfortunately it wasn't great, But because of the novelty it managed to get a sequel in 1992 strangely titled Mega Man 3. It wasn't much better than the first, but still got recognition because of the novelty. 

MegaMan 3 (1992).

Hi Tech continued to make licensed games for computers and consoles but none managed to make an impact due to poor quality.  They also made games for consoles like the NES, SNES and Gameboy. They even planned to make an NES game based on Twin Peaks, But it never got released. The company enter one more name change becoming Hi Tech Entertainment in 1993, but it did nothing. With continued finacial problems they were reaching their end. Their last games were made in 1994 and some of them like Bobby's World were canceled. Resulting in the company shutting down in 1995.

However there was some good that came out of it, The barrels in the PC version of Megaman were reused in the first Duke Nukem game by Apogee Software and many of their employees went on to  work for Acclaim working on on  games like NBA Jam, Alien³, The Alien Trilogy and Mortal Kombat II.

Other than that, The company is otherwise a forgotten piece of history. but Its tale is a reminder of how the christmas spirt can lead to the most unlikely of paths. That wraps up my blog for the day. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thanks for reading! See you next time!