The story
Founded by Joan Blades and Wes Boyd in 1987, in Berkeley.1
Private company
Berkeley Systems
Logo: The logo is from the following website: http://www.berksys.com/, Non-free logo, via Wikipedia3
Defunct American software company
Berkeley Systems was a San Francisco Bay Area-based software company co-founded in 1987 by Wes Boyd and Joan Blades. It made money early on by performing contract work for the National Institutes of Health, specifically in making modifications to the Macintosh so that it could be used by partially sighted or blind people. Several of these Access programs were licensed by Apple Computer and added to the operating system.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0
Last updated Oct 21, 2026.
Overview
1987Founded1
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Berkeley Systems was a San Francisco Bay Area-based software company co-founded in 1987 by Wes Boyd and Joan Blades. It made money early on by performing contract work for the National Institutes of Health, specifically in making modifications to the Macintosh so that it could be used by partially sighted or blind people. Several of these Access programs were licensed by Apple Computer and added to the operating system. Perhaps the most ambitious of these technologies was a program that could read the Macintosh screen, called outSPOKEN, which won a technology award from the Smithsonian in 1990.2
Leadership
Who has led Berkeley Systems, and when. Pick a name to see everywhere that person has worked.
- FounderJoan Blades1
- FounderWes Boyd1
Products and brands
- computer accessibility
Listed on Wikidata.1
Timeline
Links
- WikipediaBerkeley Systems
- WikidataQ4892118
Sources
The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.
- 1WikidataBerkeley Systems on Wikidata
- 2WikipediaBerkeley Systems on Wikipedia
- 3