Keypunch Software
Keypunch Software was an American software distributor from around 1985-1993. The company usually published budget software packages by mail, but also sold their products in some stores. They focused on the home computers of the day, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, Apple II, and Atari 8-bit, and mostly published shovelware compilation video games, but also distributed any other software they thought they could sell. The company was notorious for selling software they didn't own, usually by taking existing games that were being distributed as freeware or open source, and modifying them to make them seem like a new game. They would usually remove all credits and re-title the games so the original developers wouldn't find out.
Contents
Personal
My cousin had several Keypunch software bundles for his Tandy 1000, and, although most of the games were pretty awful, we played them a lot because we didn't have many other options. When I was in my 20s, I started making fan Web pages for some of the games they published, and, while researching the games, I discovered that Keypunch had just rebranded older free games. The more I researched the games, the more I discovered that Keypunch was essentially a pirate organization and lost a lot of respect for them.
Games
These are the games Keypunch Software published that are important to me. For all games see the category.
Media
Logo
The Keypunch Software logo consists of the Helvetica typeface with negative kerning. The top part is bold, the bottom part is narrow. It was used on pretty much all of their boxes, from 1986-1993.
I made this vector art based on the logo used on their published boxes. The bottom part isn't as narrow as it should be.
Links
