Softdisk

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Softdisk is a software and Internet company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Founded in 1981, its original products were disk magazines (which they termed "magazettes", for "magazine on diskette"). They were affiliated and partly owned by paper magazine Softalk at their founding, but survived its demise. Publications included Softdisk for the Apple II, Loadstar for the Commodore 64, Big Blue Disk (later On Disk Monthly and Softdisk PC) for the IBM PC, Diskworld (later Softdisk for Mac) for the Apple Macintosh, Softdisk G-S for the Apple IIgs, and Softdisk for Windows for the Windows platform. By the late 1990s, however, these publications were discontinued, although Loadstar had a continued life as an independent company catering to a cult following of Commodore buffs.

Softdisk has also published some standalone programs, including screensaver creator Screen Saver Studio (which is now published by Flat Rock Software). However, they are probably most famous for being the former workplace of several of the founders of id Software, including John Carmack and John Romero, who worked on a short-lived game subscription product (Gamer's Edge) for Softdisk before going off on their own to found id. To complete their contractual obligation to Softdisk, they did a few more games for them including Hovertank 3D, Rescue Rover, and Keen Dreams (the "lost" episode of the Commander Keen series). Softdisk later published games by other developers using the game engines of the earlier games.

Lesser known trivia about Softdisk is that some of the earliest employees of Origin Systems worked there before moving on: Greg Malone (Moebius, Windwalker), Dallas Snell (The Ring), Alan Gardner (Windwalker, Ultima VI).

Since 1995, Softdisk has been an Internet service provider, Web hosting service, and Internet developer as well, and this is now their primary area of business. They have offered local dialup service in the Shreveport area (although this area of business has since been sold to another company), and Web hosting and development services.

Names they have been known by at various times and for various purposes include: Softdisk Magazette, Softdisk Publishing, Softdisk Internet Services, Softdisk, Inc., Softdisk, L.L.C., and Magazines On Disk. Softdisk has always been officially written as one word, though it is often mistakenly written as Soft Disk or SoftDisk.

In recent years, several of their products and services have been sold off to other companies, and they are now concentrating on developing business solutions.

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