Softdisk was 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"). It was affiliated and partly owned by paper magazine Softalk at founding, but survived its demise. The company has been known by a variety of names, including Softdisk Magazette, Softdisk Publishing, Softdisk, Inc., Softdisk Internet Services, Softdisk, L.L.C., and Magazines On Disk. Softdisk is most well known for being the former workplace of several of the founders of id Software. Publications Publications included Softdisk for the Apple II; Loadstar for the Commodore 64; Big Blue Disk, The Gamer’s Edge, and PC Business Disk for the IBM PC; Diskworld (later Softdisk for Mac) and DTPublisher (specializing in desktop publishing) for the Apple Macintosh; Softdisk G-S for the Apple IIGS; Softdisk for Windows for the Windows platform, published from 1994–1999; and Shareware Spotlight, a short-lived publication featuring the best Shareware offerings for the PC. By the late 1990s, these publications were discontinued, although Loadstar had a continued life as an independent company catering to a cult following of Commodore buffs. Big Blue Disk Big Blue Disk was a monthly disk magazine that was published by Softdisk for IBM PC and compatibles that began publication in 1986. It required 256k of memory. Softdisk was sued by IBM for trademark infringement over the use of the name "Big Blue" in 1989. Standalone programs and Gamer's Edge Softdisk is most famous for being the former workplace of several of the founders of id Software, who worked on a short-lived game subscription product, Gamer's Edge. Gamer's Edge was a monthly PC game disk started in 1990 by John Romero. The disk's developers were John Carmack, John Romero, and Adrian Carmack. Tom Hall, then a programmer who worked in the Apple II department of Softdisk, would come in at night to help with the game design. Lane Roathe was the editor. These developers later left Softdisk to found id Software. To complete their contractual obligation to Softdisk, the developers built several more games for Softdisk, including Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion, Rescue Rover, Hovertank 3D, Rescue Rover 2, Tiles of the Dragon, Catacomb 3D and Keen Dreams (the "lost" episode of the Commander Keen series). Softdisk later hired a new team to create new titles using the game engines of the earlier games, including the later founders of