Microsoft Works (1986) 67 Word Processor Spreadsheet Communications Database MacOS DOS

Microsoft Works was an all-in-one scaled-down Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Database geared towards the home user. It was released in variants for early DOS, Windows, and Macintosh. Microsoft Works competed against Lotus Jazz, FrameWork, AlphaWorks/LotusWorks, PFS First Choice, and many others.

• 1.x (Mac)
• 1.x (DOS)
• 2.x (Mac)
• 2.x (DOS)

VMS (1990) 2 Other

The Virtual Memory System (VMS) is an OS originally designed for the DEC VAX line of servers. Over time, the OS grew to support Alpha and Itanium based machines. Released initially in 1977, the OS was a major competitor at the time to UNIX based machines.

• 4.x

Microsoft SQL Server (1989) 84 OS2

A database server from Microsoft. It was originally based on Sybase SQL Server, and the first versions were for OS/2. It was available as a standalone product and also as a part of Microsoft BackOffice Server.

• 1.x

Watcom C/C++ (1989) 16 DOS

The Watcom C/C++ is a powerful compiler for DOS, Windows, and OS/2. Its key selling point was superior cross platform support. It supported DOS, extended DOS 32-bit, Win16, Win32, and OS/2. Notably, it was used to produce the video game DOOM as a 32-bit DOS extended program.

• 7.0

Norton Anti-Virus (1990) 0 Utility DOS

Originally written by Symantec and sold as Symantec Antivrus for Macintosh, it became part of the "Norton" branded products sold by Symantec after they acquired Peter Norton Computing. Norton Anti-Virus became a popular product on DOS, Windows, and Macintosh (SAM was renamed to NAV in 1998) and battled the then-new threat of malicious software. In 2015, Symantec unified their security product lineup under the single "Norton Security" product. It was also bundled with Norton SystemWorks.

• 1.0

After Dark (1989) 26 Novelty MacOS Windows

After Dark, from Berkeley Systems, Inc, is a set of entertaining screen savers for Mac and Windows. After Dark for Windows started off as "Magic Screen Saver" for Windows 2.x. After Dark was most famous for its "Flying Toasters" screen saver. Afterdark was very popular on both the early Macintosh computers and Windows 3.0, as neither included any kind of screen saver or screen blanker that would help prevent screen burn-in.

• 1.0 for Macintosh
• Magic ScreenSaver

AppleWorks (1986) 6 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Graphics Communications Database Other

AppleWorks is an all-in-one Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Database, Graphics Editor, and Presentations tool. The original product was a text-based product for the Apple II. The Apple Macintosh and Windows versions were forked from ClarisWorks in 1998 by Apple. At the time, Apple was under a lot of pressure to have a direct alternative to Microsoft Office. There were serious concerns that Microsoft might pull Microsoft Office for the Macintosh from development.

• 2.x (Apple II)

Windows SDK & DDK (1986) 17 Windows DOS

The Microsoft Windows Software Development Kits (SDK) provide sample program code, extra libraries, and documentation to aid application developers producing Windows applications. Microsoft Windows Driver Development Kits are similar sets of samples and libraries but specific to device driver development, and much more in-depth.

• Windows 1.x
• Windows 2.x
• Windows 3.0

The Print Shop (1984) 17 Publishing DOS MacOS

The Print Shop is a home oriented publisher capable of creating calendars, banners, greeting cards and other printable goods. It started off on the Apple II and Commodore 64 where it became popular for its simplicity and ease of use. From day one, it featured interactive editing, on-screen artwork/layout selection, print previewing, and a library of customizable clipart.

• For IBM PC (DOS)
• 1.x (Mac)
• The NEW PS (DOS)

Sound Blaster Drivers (1990) 59 DOS

The Sound Blaster is a series of sound cards from Create Labs. For a time, the Sound Blaster was considered a de-facto standard for DOS based gaming. Initially it competed against the uncommon IBM Music Feature card, and the Adlib cards. The original sound blaster provided 8-bit mono digital sound in addition to Adlib-compatible FM music synthesis and stereo CMS Game Blaster compatible square-wave music. Most DOS games work best with the earlier ISA cards. Later PCI cards use completely different hardware and only provide Sound Blaster compatiblity through software emulation.

• Sound Blaster 1.0
• Sound Blaster 1.5

Ability (1985) 5 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Communications Database DOS

Originally released in 1984 by the Canadian company Xanaro that went bankrupt, and then by Migent, Ability is an integrated office suite for DOS that includes word processor, spreadsheet, database, telecommunications, business graphing, presentation graphics capabilities, and built in file management. It features good integration between the different components, with the ability to import, share, and dynamically update data between them. It was advertised as a very easy to use and a quick to learn system.

• 1.0
• Demo
• 1.2
• Plus 1.0

Adobe Illustrator (1988) 84 Graphics Windows MacOS

Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Adobe Systems. It was often sold as a companion product to the bit-map/photo editor Adobe Photoshop. Illustrator was originally released in 1987 for the Apple Macintosh. Early versions were ported to NexT, Silicon Graphics, and Sun Solaris.

• 1.x
• 3.x

Photoshop (1988) 61 Graphics MacOS Windows

Photoshop is a powerful drawing and photo manipulation program for both Mac and Windows. The Macintosh version was released by Adobe in 1990, although a very small number were bundled with Barneyscan slide scanners prior to that. Photoshop contained many advanced features including layered images, advanced color control, and plug-ins. Prior to its release, many of its features were only found in high end dedicated photo pre-processing systems.

• 0.x (beta)
• 1.x

AIX (1986) 3 Unix

AIX (Advanced Interactive eXecutive) is a Unix port originally developed by IBM and released in 1986 for the IBM RT 6150, a RISC based desktop workstation. It was later ported to the RS/6000, POWER, and PowerPC platforms as well as IBM System i, System/370 mainframes, and the PS/2 personal computers, and the Apple Network Server.

• IBM RT
• AIX PS/2
• 3.x

NetWare (1989) 13 Other

Novel NetWare was an early and powerful network/file sharing operating system. It was first released in 1983 and supported DOS and CP/M clients and was initially unique in that it shared individual files rather than entire disk volumes. Initially servers ran on a proprietary Motorola 68000 system but quickly changed to IBM PC where it supported a very wide variety of third party hardware. It used a cooperative tasking server environment and had some advanced features usually only found in mainframe products.

• 2.x
• 3.x

Paint Shop Pro (1990) 46 Graphics Windows

JASC Paint Shop Pro is a simple and easy to use bit-mapped graphics editor. It supports a wide variety of file formats, and photo manipulation functions that were comparable to PhotoShop. It has good support for editing 256 color palletized images that made it ideal for editing web graphics. It was first released in 1990 for Windows 3.0 as just "Paint Shop", and early versions gained popularity through the distribution of shareware releases. It lost popularity in 2003 when 8.0 was introduced with a redesigned UI and in 2004, JASC was acquired by Corel.

• 1.x

Logitech Mouseware (1987) 13 DOS

Logitech mice and pointing devices were popular competition to Microsoft or Microsoft clone mice. Logitech mice often had extra features that required Logitech drivers, and early Logitech mice were not Microsoft or Mouse Systems protocol compatible.

• 3.x
• 4.0

Lotus 1-2-3 (1983) 56 Spreadsheet DOS OS2 Unix

Lotus 1-2-3 was an early spreadsheet application available for MS-DOS. It became extremely popular in the late 1980s, displacing the former leader VisiCalc. Lotus had difficulties adapting 1-2-3 to the Windows environment, and was overtaken by Microsoft Excel. Spreadsheet functionality was also included in Lotus Symphony. Later versions were included in Lotus SmartSuite.

• 1.x (DOS)
• 1A (PCJr Cart)
• 2.x (DOS)
• 3.x (DOS)
• Add-ins
• 1.x (OS/2)
• 1.x (Unix)

Norton Utilities (1983) 25 Utility DOS Unix MacOS

The Norton Utilities is a suite of disk and system utilities designed to enhance system performance and stability. It started off as a set of disk utilities written by Peter Norton, and later was sold by Symantec. It competed against Central Point PC Tools and the Mace Utilities. In 2003, Norton Utilities was merged with Norton SystemWorks, but later split back out.

• 2.0x
• 3.00
• 3.10
• 4.0
• 4.5
• For System V
• 1.0 for Mac
• 5.0

Sun Solaris (1989) 16 Unix

Solaris is a Unix based operating system created by Sun Microsystems (now purchased by Oracle in 2010). It is the successor to SunOS and was released initially in June of 1992. The OS is based off of System V Unix and its first release was known internally as SunOS 5. This OS was typically used on SPARC based processors, up until 1994 when it began to support x86 and x86-64 based machines. Versions of Solaris up until version 8 are considered abandoned, with version 9's support ending in October 2014.

• 1.x

LapLink (1987) 11 Communications DOS

LapLink, from Traveling Software Inc., enables users to easily and quickly move files between two DOS computers using only a serial null-modem cable or a special parallel port connector. No other hardware is needed. Laplink was extremely popular.during the late 80s and early 90s. It was infinitely easier to set up any two arbitrary PCs (often portables or laptops) with LapLink than other methods, such as DOS based networking. MS-DOS 6 bundled a similar set of file transfer tools called INTERLNK and INTERSVR.

• 2.x
• 3.x

Calendar Creator Plus (1990) 1 Novelty PIM DOS

Calendar Creator Plus from Vermont Creative Software/Power Up, and later Spinnaker Software, is a tool for creating printed calendars with different styles and custom lists of events.

• 3.x (DOS)

WordPerfect (1983) 50 Word Processor DOS Other MacOS OS2

During the late 1980's, WordPerfect was THE standard word processor for DOS based PCs in big business. Under DOS, it competed mostly against Wordstar. WordPerfect for Windows enjoyed some success in the early Windows environments, but was quickly displaced by Microsoft Word for Windows. Later Windows versions were part of Borland Office/Novell PerfectOffice/Corel Office/Corel WordPerfect Office.

• 3.x (DOS)
• 4.x (DOS)
• 4.1 (Amiga)
• 1.x (Mac)
• 5.0 (DOS)
• 5.1 (DOS)
• 5.0 (OS/2)

Xenix (1984) 43 Other Unix Linux

Xenix was the variant of UNIX originally published by Microsoft, later sold to SCO. It added a variety of technical enhancements over System V Unix, including a menu-driven business shell. It was ported to many different platforms from a PDP-11 including the Altos 8600 (First x86 port), IBM PC, Intel System 86, TRS-80 Model 16, SCP Gazelle II, and Apple Lisa. The Xenix Software Development System, Microsoft Multiplan 2.x and Microsoft Multiplan 3.x, Microsoft Word 3.0 and Microsoft Word 5.x, and FoxBase Plus 1.00

• Apple Lisa
• IBM PC 1.00
• Tandy 16/6000 3.x
• IBM PC 2.00
• 8086
• 286
• 386
• SysV 386 v3.x

Norton Commander (1986) 65 Utility DOS

Norton Commander is a MS-DOS based file shell that was widely popular due to it's two column design. You could easily copy and move files between one folder or another, execute DOS commands and more. It competed against many other file managers including Gazelle Q-DOS and Xtree

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x