about burr oak software

Burr Oak Software was started following WWDC 1995 when Wendy & I (Cam) became infatuated with the Newton MessagePad.

To appreciate the name "Burr Oak", you need to say it out loud.

Our first application, Time of the Month, allowed you to produce calendars for things like group events, taking advantage of the Newton's high quality printing system.

We first sold Time of the Month on eWorld.

Wendy likes clever names, and decided on "Time of the Month".  We received quite a few email messages from people who didn't think we knew what it meant.

We did.

We created several more Newton applications over the next couple of years: "Personal Minutes Supervisor" (another of Wendy's clever names), "Meetings In Hand" and "StickyNewts" (which was sold just before the Newton was discontinued).  And several other apps that never saw the light of day due to the aforementioned discontinuation.

The Newton days were great.  Anything was possible, and the world was on the brink of a mobile revolution.

Sometime in late 1996, we began looking at the new Windows CE PDAs, just as an experiment.  Somewhere in a box we still have our original Casio Cassiopeia A10.

Our first application was Conversions In Hand, which we finished in 1997.

And of course, in 1998. the Newton was cancelled whereupon which switched to Windows CE development full time.  We have, however, kept an eMate 300 for sentimental reasons.

Over the ensuing years, we developed a slew of applications - some of which are still available for download on this site.  More than 10 years later. 

We've followed the evolution of the Windows Mobile platform from Handheld PC, Palm-size PC (remember that Microsoft was unable to use Palm PC due to pressure from Palm), Pocket PC and up to Windows Mobile.



pTravelAlarm for Palm-size PC
pTravelAlarm for Windows Mobile 5 & 6

For a few years following the demise of Windows Mobile (and the rise of iPhone), we pursued other ventures - although we did produce a port of Conversions In Hand for iPhone, known as Reference In Hand.

With the launch of Windows 8, we were once again excited about mobile possibilities (and winning an award for our new Windows 8 app - Tome Sifter - helped the excitement).

But now it's finally time to move on to other things: I'm trying my hand at writing, and Wendy has become quite the photographer. The app development scene, we've found, just no longer appeals to us.

We'll be leaving this site up for the timebeing for a look at history if nothing else. We have, over the years, enjoyed interacting with you, and wish all of you all the best. It was, for the most part, a lot of fun.