Est. 1981 · Burlington, New Jersey

Forty-five years
of American
electronics.

Spelling Aces. Pocket Bibles. The first talking dictionary. The first handheld speller. Franklin Electronic Publishers has been putting knowledge in your hand since 1981.

High Street in the Burlington, New Jersey historic district — the city Franklin has called home since 1981

Burlington, NJ · Home since 1981

The Founders

Three executives.
One bet on
affordable computing.

Barry Borden, Russell Bower, and Joel Shusterman incorporated Franklin Computer Corporation in 1981. The first Franklin product, the ACE 100, was an Apple II-compatible desktop built for schools and small offices that could not afford the original.

Within three years Franklin employed more than four hundred people and made the cover of trade journals nationwide. Within five, a single appellate ruling forced the company out of the desktop market entirely.

What came next is the company you know.

Barry BordenRussell BowerJoel Shusterman

The Timeline

Forty-five years on a
single sheet of paper.

1981
Founded in Burlington County
Three executives — Barry Borden, Russell Bower, and Joel Shusterman — incorporate Franklin Computer Corporation in southern New Jersey. The original mission is to build affordable Apple II-compatible desktop computers for schools and small businesses.
1982
The ACE 1000 ships
Franklin's flagship Apple II Plus clone reaches retail. By 1983 the company employs more than 450 people and posts $71 million in annual sales — among the largest PC clone makers in the country.
1983
Apple v. Franklin reaches the Third Circuit
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit holds that operating systems and BIOS code are protectable by copyright. The decision reshapes American software law and forces Franklin to leave the desktop market within five years.
1984
Bankruptcy and rebuild
Franklin files for Chapter 11. The company emerges under new leadership with a smaller workforce and a new direction: instead of clones, build the most useful handheld reference devices in the world.
1986
Modern model
Spelling Ace — the first handheld speller
Franklin acquires Proximity Technology and ships the Spelling Ace, the first commercial handheld electronic spelling corrector. More than 800,000 units sell within two years. The company returns to profitability and never looks back.
1989
Modern model
The pocket Bible
Franklin releases handheld editions of the King James, New International, and Revised Standard versions of the Bible. Country musician Johnny Cash records nearly 400 passages from the King James edition for the line.
1990
Renamed Franklin Electronic Publishers
The company drops "Computer Corporation" from its name to reflect a decade of work in handheld electronic publishing. Franklin Electronic Publishers, Inc. trades on the American Stock Exchange under the symbol FEP.
1992
Modern model
Language Master
Franklin ships the Language Master — the first talking handheld dictionary, spell checker, and grammar guide. The same year, the Digital Book System wins Popular Science's Best of What's New award for its swappable cartridge architecture.
1995
Bookman
The Bookman platform launches with pre-installed databases and an expansion-card slot for additional reference titles. By 1998 Franklin has sold more than fifteen million electronic books through forty-five thousand retail outlets worldwide.
1999
eBookMan
Franklin enters the dedicated eBook market with eBookMan — a handheld reader that plays MP3 audio and stores entire libraries on memory cards. It anticipates the form factor that consumer electronics would not catch up with for another decade.
2009
FEP Holding Company
Franklin Electronic Publishers, Inc. merges with Saunders Acquisition Corporation and becomes private as FEP Holding Company, LLC. The Burlington headquarters and the brand continue, focused on a tighter portfolio of handheld language and reference devices.
2026
Forty-five years on
Franklin remains the leading handheld talking-dictionary brand in the United States. Bilingual translators, spelling correctors, and the still-shipping Spelling Ace ground a catalog with deep roots in classroom and travel use.

The Catalog

Five categories. One reference shelf.

Franklin MDE-1200 portable electronic dictionary and thesaurus

Apple v. Franklin · 1983

The case that wrote
software into law.

In 1982, Apple Computer sued Franklin Computer Corporation for copying portions of the Apple II BIOS into the Franklin ACE 100 and ACE 1000. The District Court ruled for Franklin. Apple appealed.

On August 30, 1983, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed. Operating systems and BIOS code, the court held, are protectable by copyright in their binary form. The decision is cited in nearly every software-IP case that has come after.

Franklin lost the appeal, paid Apple, and exited the desktop market by 1988. Three years earlier, in 1986, the company had released a small handheld device called the Spelling Ace. That is the Franklin you know today.

The Franklin ACE 100 desktop computer, 1982 — photographed by Dave Ruske, CC BY 2.0

Franklin ACE 100 · 1982

Find Franklin

Authorized distributors
and retail partners.

Featured Distributor

Samsonic Trading Co.

NYC-based consumer-electronics distributor founded 1971. Distributes Franklin reference products throughout the United States, with extensive retail and educational-supply relationships.

Visit Samsonic→