The Franklin you know today — talking dictionaries, electronic Bibles, the Spelling Ace — came from a company that started out cloning Apple computers and ended up in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Franklin's first product. An Apple II-compatible desktop built for schools and small offices that could not afford the original. The ACE 100 sat at the center of the Apple v. Franklin lawsuit that established software copyright in American law.
The flagship Apple II Plus clone. Built around an Apple-compatible BIOS and motherboard, the ACE 1000 carried Franklin's brand into more than four hundred jobs and seventy million dollars in annual sales before the lawsuit changed the rules.
The first commercial handheld electronic spelling corrector. Type a misspelled word, get a list of likely corrections. Eight hundred thousand units sold in two years and the device that brought Franklin back from bankruptcy.
The first handheld electronic Bible. Full King James text with passage search and verse-of-the-day, voiced for the audio edition by Johnny Cash, who recorded nearly four hundred passages for Franklin.
Franklin's first talking handheld dictionary, spell checker, and grammar guide. The audio component changed how the line was used in classrooms and put Franklin reference devices in front of a generation of students.
A handheld reference device with swappable cartridges. Buy the Bookman, then add the Merriam-Webster, the Physician's Desk Reference, the Bible, or any of more than two hundred titles. The architecture anticipated app stores by a decade.
A dedicated handheld for reading entire books on a battery-friendly grayscale screen, with audio playback for spoken-word titles. Released a decade before mainstream consumer eReaders found the same form factor.
