Highlands Computer Services was founded by Butch Greathouse and Garry Rheinhardt in Renton, Wa. Two doors down from the founder of Synergistic Software, Robert C. Clardy, Butch and A.P.P.L.E.’s Joff Morgan spent a lot of time with Bob in the early days figuring out what the Apple II computer could do and creating software.
This month brought one more section of the A.P.P.L.E. Library back from the digital graveyard. As we went through two and a half years of mail, we were struck by an interesting in-house disk label. On it was written Tarturian. This particular game was the second game produced by HCS. As we looked further, we found more and more.
These new find brought our library to a much more complete state. This there is a new page in the library which includes all of the HCS games. For those who have never heard of HCS, this was the company created just two houses Down the same street where Synergistic Software was founded. One Butch Greathouse was the brain child who along with Garry Rheinholt created some of the earliest graphical RPG games.
All told, all six games produced by HCS sold less than 20,000 copies total, however, they were key to pushing the limits of what was considered to be possible with the Apple II Computer.
Many folks have stated the Roberta Williams was the first to create this type of game, however both Synergistic and HCS both have products that predate the Sierra Online games. This does not belittle what Sierra accomplished but instead shows the direction the market was taking in that 1978 to 1980 timeframe.
The six games produced by HCS include:
- Oldorf’s Revenge aka Wizard I
- Tarturian
- Creature Venture
- Mummy’s Curse
- Goblins
- Cosmic Combat
Of the six, only Goblins was not authored by Butch and Garry. All of the games were written for the Apple II with Oldorf’s Revenge also being available on the Atari. No other platforms were ever supported by HCS Games.
As with many of the software companies of the era, HCS had basically run its course after a two year window. With sales tanking, Garry and Butch began working for A.P.P.L.E., bringing with them the HCS titles, which added to their sales numbers. The members library of over 50,000 members and magazine distribution of 100,000 plus each month allowed for sales of the titles to increase, but as with all software, the time of the games by then had run its course and by that time, Ultima had taken over the market.
Now that we have all six games as well as the ROM products produced by HCS, we will return the items to the members library over the coming days in the hopes that another generation can enjoy them.
This page is dedicated to providing our members with a central point to get all of the software and the manuals and other information related to Highland Computer Services.
The Games
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| Oldorf’s Revenge / Wizard I | Tarturian | Creature Venture |
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| Goblins | Mummy’s Curse | Cosmic Combat |
Other Labels
Oldorf’s Revenge was also sold by Bob Clardy’s Synergistic Software as The Warlock’s Revenge and has a completely different look from the version sold by HCS. It was primarily for the Atari 400/800 computer.
