Tag Archives: just for you inc

Unearthed: Kirschen’s “Music Creator” for IBM PC

Photo of the staff of LKP Ltd.

The staff of LKP Ltd. pose for a photo with a Commodore Amiga running an early version of their Magic Harp software, probably in the summer of 1986 or early 1987. In front, from left to right: Yaakov Kirschen and Sali Ariel. In back: Dror Heller; Orly Aknin; Orly’s sister, Sigi; Yuval Ronen; Marcelo Bilezker; Esther (Etti) Yotvet; and Hedva (surname unknown).
(Photo courtesy of Sali Ariel)

Decades before the debut of DALL-E, Israeli cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen was developing an “artificial creativity” system to let computers compose their own music, by extracting components of existing songs and combining them in new ways. The software was originally written for the Amiga, but business changes led them to abandon that platform and port the program to the PC. Only the PC version survives.

Keep reading for more background on Kirschen’s multi-year effort to find a market for his musical innovation, or skip down to the links to the disk images.

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Unearthed: Kirschen’s Atari ST projects

Screen capture of Mom talking in Yaakov Kirschen's 1985 program "Mom and Me" for the Atari ST.

Screen capture of Mom talking in Yaakov Kirschen’s 1985 program “Mom and Me” for the Atari ST,

The artificial personalities “Murray” and “Mom” were among the very first entertainment offerings for the Atari ST computer. They were also the first products released by Israeli cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen’s new “LKP, Ltd.” software studio in Israel, in partnership with his American firm, “Just For You, Inc.”

Keep reading for more background on Kirschen, LKP, and Just For You, as well as details about each of these programs.

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Bringing dry bones back to life: The Kirschen software collection

Yaakov Kirschen works on "The Goldberg Variations" in 1983.

Yaakov Kirschen works on “The Goldberg Variations” in 1983.

It’s time to bring some dry bones back to life.

In coming days, I will publish a curated collection of lost software developed by the Israeli cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen together with programmers from Gesher Educational Affiliates as well as from his own studio, LKP Ltd.

The collection includes ten games, demos, and experiments in artificial personality and artificial creativity. The software was developed between 1983 and 1989 for various platforms including the Apple II, Atari ST, and IBM PC.

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