Software graphics tools. One of the other widely touted aspects of Penguin Software's titles was that they deliberately stopped using copy protection, thus making it easier to back up their programs. Pelczarski sent a letter to many computer magazines to describe his position, which asked that users of their software not abuse their trust. As software sales expanded into book stores, Penguin Software was confronted by Penguin Books in regard of infringement of their name. Fearing that the legal costs of a lawsuit could have decimated his company, even in the case of an eventual victory, Pelczarski phased in a new name "Polarware" in 1986, eventually ending the "Penguin Software" brand. Since the Apple II, Macintosh, IBM, Commodore, and Atari computers all had varying graphics capabilities and different processors, releasing a software title for each different brand of computer usually involved programming it again from scratch for each platform. Penguin Software/Polarware began focusing on cross-platform ideas that would allow them to release games simultaneously on different systems without the lengthy re-programming process. The compact images from Graphics Magician could be used across platforms, and an adventure game development and deployment language called Comprehend was created to be system independent and was used for several releases. Also using Graphics Magician across platforms and with a portable design, the first three titles in the Adventures Around the World geography game series were released. However a similar idea called Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego reached the market a few months sooner and doomed the Penguin Software series. In 1987 Polarware was purchased by four employees, Jeffrey (JJ) Jay, Steve Greene, Peg Smith, and Trish Glenn. This new team produced the children's software series written by Brian A. Rice, The Electric Crayon, a simple electronic coloring book. In 1988, Polarware was acquired by Merit Software and the Polarware name soon disappeared. Legacy As Merit Software moved on to newer products, rights to the old software title were bought back from the remains of Polarware, and many of those titles were subsequently released as freeware to bring them out of Abandonware. Also after end of official support of their products, an enthusiast reconstructed a source code variant of the Comprehend engine to port these games to modern platforms. Software titles References General References More Apple II games from Penguin Software from the Apple II World site (Japanese website, archived) Defunct software companies of