Peter and Heidi Roizen

Peter and Heidi Roizen

From 1983 to 1996, Peter and Heidi Roizen co-founded T/Maker Company, which made software for CP/M and MS-DOS computers, and later for the Apple Macintosh.

Peter Roizen was born in 1946 and graduated from  the University of California, Berkeley in 1967 with a degree in mathematics. He was employed as a software developer for the World Health Organization in Geneva, then worked for the World Bank. It was his work with the World Bank that led him to invent a "Table Maker" software program that would allow formulae to be abstracted from data, therefore allowing the table's formulae to be re-used. Not only was his software one of the earliest spreadsheet programs, it can also claim title to the earliest ‘integrated application’ as the program was also a capable word processor and early database system. Roizen renamed it T/Maker and sold the first version through software distributor Lifeboat Associates of New York.

Roizen went on to develop other software products, including T/Master and "I Hate Algebra" as well as the early internet communications product Touchpoint. In 2005, he created WildWords, a board-based word game.

From 1987 until 1994, Heidi Roizen also served on the board of directors of the Software Publishers Association and was its president from 1988 to 1990. From 1996 to 1997, she was Vice President of World Wide Developer Relations for Apple Inc. She also served on the board of Great Plains Software from 1997 until its acquisition by Microsoft in 2001


 

 

 

 
Photograph of Peter and Heidi Roizen Click for a larger version






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