Berkeley Systems
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Berkeley Systems was a San Francisco Bay Area software company cofounded in 1987 by Wes Boyd and Joan Blades. It made money early on by doing contract work for the National Institute of Health, specifically in making modifications to the Macintosh so that it could be usable by people with very low vision, or even the blind. Several of these Access [1] programs were licensed by Apple Computer and added to the operating system. Perhaps the most ambitious of these technologies was a program that could read the Macintosh screen, called Outspoken, which won a technology award from the Smithsonian in 1990.
The first commercial success for Berkeley Systems was a virtual desktop product for the Macintosh called Stepping Out. Given the small size of the first Macintosh screens, this product had some use and the idea was widely copied. The much bigger success was After Dark, a modular screensaver and the first of its kind to be sold. The idea was brought to Berkeley Systems by Jack Eastman and Patrick Beard. Eastman was later put in charge of software development at Berkeley Systems.
Berkeley Systems' best-selling product, the trivia game You Don't Know Jack, was developed by Jellyvision based on their award-winning children's educational film “The Mind’s Treasure Chest”. YDKJ brought that program's model of interactive learning, engaging structure and pacing, and charismatic host character, "Jack", into the commercial mainstream. It also brought graphics, sound editing, and marketing to Berkeley; production of the show continued at Jellyvision's Chicago studios.
Based in a small office building on Rose Street in Berkeley, California, Berkeley Systems grew to 120 employees and USD $30 million annual revenue before it was acquired by the Sierra On-Line division of CUC International in 1997 for $13.8 million. Vivendi Universal’s subsequent acquisition of Sierra, and a host of similar enterprises, enjoined diverse competing sales and marketing departments with one sole directive: sell web banner ads. Thus Berkeley Systems, still with most of the original creative and engineering staff and still housed in their original North Berkeley offices, became the US headquarters of French-owned Flipside.com. In early 2000, Berkeley Systems was folded into the fledgling Los Angeles-based gambling site iWin.com, per the terms of that site's acquisition by Vivendi. iWin's calling card games featured thousands of lines of special secret bonus code for their more savvy users: years of accumulated jokes, smack-talk, and signature gags inserted there by the games' creators, the Berkeley Systems engineers. This revelation was not enough to delay the cleaning out of cubicles, or the dismantling of the famous kitchen-slide[2], and the staff bid teary farewell to the big-eyed blowfish who swam guard at reception.
In 2001, ABC produced a televised version of the You Don't Know Jack game, complete with live contestants and Paul Reubens as host. It lasted one season.
During the 90s Berkeley Systems filed a lawsuit against Delrina software because Delrina made a parody of Berkeley's famous "flying toasters" screen saver. This set a legal precedent that software companies do not enjoy the same First Amendment protections against satire as others do.
Boyd and Blades went on to found the MoveOn.org liberal political group in 1998. Blades also later co-founded MomsRising.org with Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner in 2006.
