It is with a heavy heart we report Bruce Rosenblum, creator of the PublishIt! desktop publishing (DTP) software for the Apple II, passed away on December 13, 2023. He was 64.
Bruce joined Turning Point Software in 1984, eventually rising to the position of vice president of software development. It was here that he not only released PublishIt! but also worked with many other historic companies such as Microsoft, WordPerfect, Brøderbund, and Funk Software (creator of the Apple II print utility Sideways). During this time, Bruce participated in an online chat in GEnie’s Apple II RoundTable about PublishIt! 3, which had just been released; a transcript of that conversation is available online.
After 13 years at Turning Point, Bruce joined his wife Irina’s company, Inera, where he led the design and development of eXtyles, an integrated suite of tools for Microsoft Word that automates editorial and XML production processes. He remained at the intersection of the technology and publishing industries as Inera’s CEO for the rest of his career.
Bruce often collaborated with Tom Mullaney, who wrote the MIT Press book The Chinese Computer, which detailed the challenges of adapting the Chinese language to digital computers. Wrote Tom for MIT Technology Review:
Bruce Rosenblum switched on his Apple II, which rang out a high F note followed by the clatter of the floppy drive. After a string of thock thock keystrokes, the 12-inch Sanyo monitor began to phosphoresce. A green grid appeared, 16 units wide and 16 units tall. This was “Gridmaster,” a program Bruce had cooked up in the programming language BASIC to build one of the world’s first Chinese digital fonts. He was developing the font for an experimental machine called the Sinotype III, which was among the first personal computers to handle Chinese-language input and output.
“Behind the painstaking process of creating Chinese computer fonts“
Bruce and Tom virtually attended KansasFest 2021, at which they remotely presented “Sinotype III: Chinese Word Processing on the Apple II“.
In 2017, Bruce was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Bruce tackled this challenge openly and generously, often participating in clinical trials and journaling his experiences for others to learn from.
Before diagnosis I was very much a “type A,” control-oriented person. As I have lost more and more function over the past five years, I have learned to accept that I must let go of things that I cannot control, to have patience when I must wait for others to help me, and to enjoy things that I still can do while gracefully accepting the increasing number of things that I cannot do.
Bruce Rosenblum, “Patient perspective: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)“
His supportive family created the Ride to Endure, a 1,500-mile bike ride fundraiser for the ALS Association — an event that earned coverage from Boston news station WCVB.
Although Bruce and his wife sold the Inera company after his diagnosis, they remained on its staff, with Bruce regularly joining company meetings up until a few days before his passing.
Donations in Bruce’s memory can be made to Compassionate Care ALS and to the Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).
The funeral will be held Sunday, December 17, 2023 at 1 PM EST (1800 UTC), in Belmont, Massachusetts. Those interested in attending the event virtually may join the livestream.