While you should upgrade to modern tools for daily work, we owe a debt of gratitude to the humble silver disc. It turned a computer into a voice. And for that, the Boardmaker CD will always be a symbol—one of the most important ever printed.
Provide a self-contained, installable desktop application (via CD or disk image) that lets users create communication boards, visual schedules, and symbol-based activities . Includes a core PCS (Picture Communication Symbols) library, templates, and print/export functions.
For those who never used it, let’s describe the specific ritual of using a Boardmaker CD.
Mayer-Johnson launched . This subscription service offered:
Interestingly, the Boardmaker CD has become a minor collectible among archivists of educational technology. Vintage software collectors seek out the original 1989 release (floppy disks) and the first CD release (1994).
Required physical discs to be inserted for the software to run; files were stored locally on individual computers. Modern Platforms:
: CD-ROMs can degrade over time; ensure your custom board files (.bm2 or .bmk) are saved to a hard drive or cloud storage.