SofTalent
SofTalent was started in 1984 by Jack Thornton, formerly of TMQ Software in the Chicago area, and Mike Schwartz, a programmer who did work for TMQ. The company was based in Livermore, California, where Thornton grew up.
Research Methods: Interviews
Apple II
- Howard the Duck (US Publisher: Activision) [Ken Rose]
- Variable Feasts [food/recipe application] (US Publisher: Brøderbund)
- Joe Tretinik claims to have developed the Apple II version at Brøderbund. [1]
Apple IIgs
- GBA Championship Basketball: Two-on-Two (US Publisher: Activision) [Paul Terry, Jack Thornton]
- GFL Championship Football (US Publisher: Activision)
Atari 8-bit
- Battlezone (US Publisher: Atari) [Ken Rose, assisted by Mark Hemsley] [2]
- Touchdown Football (US Publisher: Electronic Arts; UK Publisher: Ariolasoft)
Commodore 64
- Demon Attack (US Publisher: Imagic)
- Programmers' BASIC Toolkit (US Publisher: Epyx) [Jack Thornton, Ken Rose, Howard Bowen?] [3] [4]
- Based on Graphics BASIC by Ron Gilbert and Tom McFarlane
- Rescue on Fractalus! (US Publisher: Epyx; UK Publisher: Activision) [Jack Thornton]
- Touchdown Football (US Publisher: Imagic, Electronic Arts)
- Variable Feasts [food/recipe application] (US Publisher: Brøderbund)
DOS
- Smart Words [educational] (US Publisher: Addison-Wesley)
Macintosh
- Smart Words [educational] (US Publisher: Addison-Wesley)
?
- Battlezone [Akien MacIain]
One source recalled working on five versions of Defender of the Crown "including Apple IIGS, Amiga, and C64 (don't remember the other two, but PC was probably one of them);" however, no version credits SofTalent or any programmer associated with SofTalent. According to the source, "the immediate cause for the collapse [of the company] was the publisher for Defender of the Crown deciding he could save money by cancelling our contracts and hiring all the programmers out from under us directly."
SofTalent also developed the "Ultracross 6502/65816 cross assembler for the PC" and a "sound effect programming tool that allowed the same data to drive sounds on C64, Atari, and IBM PC (also licensed to several companies)."
