To understand the market for this keyword, you must understand the specific versions. Not all Boardmaker CDs are created equal.
Boardmaker 1.0 (Early 90s) This was the dawn. The original CD required Macintosh System 7 or Windows 3.1. The symbol library was modest by today’s standards (approx. 1,500 symbols), but it was revolutionary. For the first time, teachers could print consistent icon grids rather than hand-drawing stick figures.
Boardmaker 4.0 & 5.0 (The Golden Era) These are the versions most veterans remember. Running on Windows 95/98 and Mac OS 9, this CD offered over 3,000 symbols. The interface was clunky—saving files required a floppy disk—but the output was pristine. This era introduced the "Addendum" CDs (sports, health, and international symbols).
Boardmaker Plus! CD (The Interactive Leap) This was the peak of the CD era. Boardmaker Plus! allowed users to not only print boards but also create on-screen activities. You could add sound, animation, and simple clickable buttons. This CD turned a standard computer into a basic speech generating device. boardmaker cd
Here’s a concise write-up for Boardmaker CD (specifically referring to the classic Boardmaker v5 or v6 from Mayer-Johnson / Tobii Dynavox).
2.1 The Pre-Digital Landscape Prior to the widespread adoption of personal computers in education, creating visual supports for students with autism, Down syndrome, or cerebral palsy was a labor-intensive craft. Educators relied on hand-drawn sketches, cut-outs from magazines, or expensive, physically produced flashcards. The inability to quickly customize materials meant that communication aids often lacked relevance to the specific user’s environment or interests.
2.2 The Mayer-Johnson Era Boardmaker was developed by Mayer-Johnson, a company founded in the early 1980s. The software was initially designed to address the need for a "Drawing + Text" tool that required no artistic skill. The initial release of Boardmaker coincided with the rise of the CD-ROM as the primary medium for software distribution. This format was crucial; the vector-based graphics required significant storage space that floppy disks could not provide, and internet speeds were insufficient for large downloads. To understand the market for this keyword, you
2.3 The Boardmaker CD Ecosystem For nearly two decades, the Boardmaker CD functioned as a standalone ecosystem. It was platform-agnostic to a degree, running on Windows and Macintosh operating systems. The "CD-in-drive" requirement became a standard friction point in classrooms, where scratched discs or lost cases often resulted in downtime. Despite this hardware fragility, the CD format allowed for a democratization of AAC tools, placing the power of material creation directly into the hands of teachers and parents rather than distant publishers.
Mayer-Johnson has updated the PCS library significantly, adding diverse skin tones and modern technology (smartphones, laptops). However, many therapists argue that the old CD symbols were more concrete. The classic "computer" symbol looked like a beige CRT monitor. For a cognitively impaired student, that old symbol is actually more recognizable than a modern tablet icon. You cannot download the 1998 symbol set legally except via a vintage CD.
If you search for "Boardmaker CD" on second-hand sites like eBay or Goodwill, you will find wild price swings. Because these are out of print, they have become collectors' items for niche special ed teachers. Warning: Be careful with "unlocked" or "cracked" versions
Warning: Be careful with "unlocked" or "cracked" versions found on torrent sites. Not only is it piracy, but vintage malware loves to hide in old assistive tech cracks.
Modern software requires monthly fees. For a school district with 50 SLPs, a subscription costs thousands of dollars per year. The original Boardmaker CD was a perpetual license. You bought the disc once, and you owned it forever. Many cash-strapped homeschool parents and retired therapists still fire up old laptops specifically because they refuse to pay a monthly fee for symbols they already "own."
Boardmaker, developed by Mayer-Johnson (now part of Tobii Dynavox), is a software program designed to create printed visual supports. The "CD" refers to the CD-ROM format that dominated the market from the early 1990s through the late 2000s.
The magic of the Boardmaker CD wasn’t just the software interface—it was the Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) . Each CD came loaded with a massive library of black-and-white or simple color line drawings. These symbols represented nouns, verbs, emotions, and abstract concepts.
Unlike vague clip art, PCS symbols were designed with linguistic clarity in mind. A child with autism or apraxia could look at a symbol for "drink" and immediately understand its meaning.