PageMaker (1987) 56 Publishing Windows MacOS

Aldus PageMaker, later Adobe PageMaker, is a desktop publishing program for Mac and Windows. First released in 1985, PageMaker was the first desktop publishing program for the Macintosh. It was followed over a year later with the release of 1.0 for the IBM PC. The PC version was a notable application as it was one of the few rare applications which would run under Windows 1.x. PC PageMaker 1.0 bundled a runtime version of Windows. This enabled MS-DOS users who had not decided to buy Windows to run PageMaker. Aldus skipped version 2.0 on the PC to bring version number in sync with the 3.0 Mac product.

• 5.0

CorelDraw! (1989) 55 Graphics Publishing Unix

Corel Draw is a vector based drawing and illustration program. It is primarily a Windows application, but was ported to Mac OS, Mac OS X, Linux, CTOS and OS/2. It competed against Aldus Freehand, Adobe Illustrator, and Micrografx Designer.

• 3.5 (Unix)

Ghost (2000) 52 Utility DOS

Ghost, originally released in 1995 by Binary Research and later under Symantec with the "Norton" title, is a PC cloning and imaging tool. It can image and restore drives to drives of different sizes, supports many different file systems, and supports many different archiving and communications methods. Ghost 7.5 and earlier support running from DOS. Later versions are Windows-only.

• 7.x

Virtual PC (1996) 49 Virtualization MacOS Windows OS2 Mac OS X

Virtual PC started off originally as an x86 emulator for PowerPC Macintosh to run MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. Connectix, the company that made it, was purchased by Microsoft. Virtual PC was then retooled into a virtualization tool for x86 systems. Microsoft discontinued Virtual PC in favor of a server-oriented virtualization product called Hyper-V.

• 1.x (Mac)
• 2.x (Mac)
• 3.x (Mac)
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x
• 7.x

dBASE (1983) 48 Database DOS Windows

Ashton-Tate dBase was an early popular database management system for CP/M and MS-DOS. It was regarded as one of the killer applications for CP/M, and achieved good success. At the time of conception Ashton-Tate was a garage based company but quickly grew.

• II v2.x
• III v1.0
• III v1.1
• III Plus v1.0
• III Plus v1.1
• IV v1.0
• IV v1.1
• IV v1.5
• IV v2.0
• 5.x

Borland Turbo Pascal (1983) 46 DOS MacOS

Borland Turbo Pascal is a Pascal programming language compiler with an Integrated Development Environment targeted at the hobbyist and entry-level market. There were versions for CP/M and DOS. For a time, it was sold along side their professional "Borland Pascal" product line. Borland also produced a set of "toolbox" libraries along side their earlier versions.

• 1.00
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 1.x (Mac)
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x
• 7.x

Netscape (1994) 46 Web Browser Windows Unix MacOS OS2 Linux Other

Netscape Navigator/Communicator was the first commercial web browser, displacing the free NCSA Mosaic. 1.0 was first released in December 1994, and initially offered advanced features such as progressively rendering pages as they loaded. It quickly gained many other features and capabilities and became the most popular web browser in the mid 1990s. One reason for its popularity, it was licensed freely for personal and non-profit use, although companies were expected to pay for a license. It later competed with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari, and eventually was open sourced in to the Mozilla browser.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.0.x
• 4.0x
• 4.5x
• 6.x

NeXTStep (1987) 43 Unix

NeXTSTEP, from NeXT Computers headed by Steve Jobs, is a Unix based operating system designed to run on m68K NeXT workstations. It later became the basis for OS X, with APIs and concepts preserved today.

• 0.x
• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x

Norton Utilities (1983) 39 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
• 6.0
• 2.0 for Mac
• 7.0
• 3.x for Mac
• 8.0
• 4.x for Mac
• 5.0 for Mac
• 6.0 for Mac

Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 39 Graphics Publishing Novelty DOS

Instant Artist, later renamed to Print Artist, is a greeting card and sign creation program that uses vectorized graphics. It was created by The Pixellite Group, the original authors of The Print Shop, and published in 1992 by Autodesk. It was later sold by Sierra On-line. It features a high quality set of generic reusable clip art. The clip art uses vector based technology that was also used in BannerMania.

• 1.0 (DOS)

AT&T System V Unix (1991) 39 Unix

AT&T UNIX System V ("System Five"), first released in 1983, is significant as it was one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was the result of much collaboration between vendors and became the core basis for many other operating systems including Xenix, AIX, UnixWare, Solaris, and HP-UX.

• 2.x

Microsoft Mouse (1984) 39 DOS Windows OS2

These are drivers provided by Microsoft for the Microsoft BusPort, serial, and PS/2 mice. Introduced in 1983, The Microsoft Mouse is historically important as it was one of Microsoft's earliest hardware products (The other being an Apple II Z-80 CP/M card). The first Mouse for the IBM PC was actually from Mouse Systems, not Microsoft. However, most clone mice emulated Microsoft's serial protocol and DOS driver software interface. The first application designed to make full use of the mouse was Microsoft Word for DOS, and they hyped a product called "Microsoft Windows" (not released until several years later) that was to compete against the upcoming Apple Macintosh and the Mouse Systems based Viscorp Visi On.

• 1.0
• 2.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x
• 7.x
• 8.x
• 9.x
• 11.x

Borland Turbo C (1987) 36 DOS

Turbo C is an Integrated Development Environment and compiler for the C programming language from Borland. First introduced in 1987, it was noted for its integrated development environment, small size, fast compile speed, comprehensive manuals and low price. After 2.0 it this product was replaced with Borland Turbo C++. It competed against, Microsoft Quick C and was generally considered faster and more successful.

• 1.x
• 2.x

Borland Turbo Assembler (1989) 36 DOS Windows

Turbo Assembler is an x86 16-bit assembler from Borland. It competed against, and was often cited as faster than Microsoft Macro Assembler.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 4.x
• 5.x

IBM PC Diagnostics (1981) 36 DOS

These are the diagnostic disks (and cassette) provided by IBM with their PC computers. They are used to verify the basic functionality of the hardware. These are only intended for use with genuine IBM computers.

• 1.00
• 1.02
• 1.02 (Cassette)
• Advanced 1.02 (Cassette and Disk)
• 2.x
• AT 1.x
• AT 2.x
• 1.x (Convertible)

Adobe Acrobat (1993) 35 Publishing MacOS Windows Unix

Adobe Acrobat, first released in 1993, is a tool for creating portable electronic documents. Its documents retain complex formatting when used across differing systems, so that they appear identical when viewed on screen or printed to a printer. Acrobat accomplishes this by encapsulating Adobe's PostSript printer language in to a document file format and offering the ability to embed fonts that are not present on the target system.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x

The Print Shop (1984) 34 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)
• Deluxe
• Deluxe 1.x (Mac)

Encarta (1993) 33 Reference Windows MacOS

Microsoft Encarta was a home oriented interactive encyclopedia that was often sold with new OEM machines. Unlike a paper encyclopedia, Encarta took full advantage of being on a computer, with updates from the Internet, sound clips and movies, interactive charts and games, and good navigation.

• 1995
• 1997

QuickBasic (1985) 33 DOS MacOS

Microsoft QuickBasic, not to be confused with the lesser QBasic, was a Basic interpreter and compiler product loosely based on GW-Basic. Version 2.0 for DOS and later included an Integrated Development Environment. Microsoft also produced QuickPascal and QuickC with similar integrated environments.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.0
• 4.0
• 4.5
• 1.0x for Mac

DOOM (1993) 32 DOS

Doom is the original fully immersive 3-D first person shooter from ID software.

• Alphas
• 1.0
• 1.1
• 1.2
• 1.25

After Dark (1989) 28 Novelty MacOS DOS

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
• 1.0 for DOS
• 9

QEMM (1990) 28 Utility DOS Windows

Quarterdeck QEMM is a DOS Extended Memory Manager for 386+ computer which allows you to make use of memory beyond the 640kb barrier. It can also be used with QRAM, a utility for freeing up the 640k base memory.

• 5.x
• 6.x
• 7.x
• 8.x
• 9.x

WordStar (1981) 27 Word Processor DOS CPM

WordStar, originally from MicroPro, was a popular word processor during the early 80s. It was ported to a number of CP/M architectures as well as Unix and PC/MS-DOS. It competed directly against many word processors, including WordPerfect, Microsoft Word for DOS, and Multimate. By the late 80s most business word processing had moved to WordPerfect. In the early 90s, Microsoft Word for Windows took over.

• 3.30
• for PCjr
• 2000
• 4.0
• 1512
• 5.0
• COLT
• 5.5
• 6
• 7

Ontrack Disk Manager (1987) 26 DOS

Ontrack Disk Manager is a BIOS overlay and partitioning tool that helps you overcome various BIOS hard drive size limits. It was commonly bundled with hard drives.

• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x
• 7.x
• 8.x
• 9.x

DR DOS (1990) 25 DOS

DR DOS is an MS-DOS compatible operating system from Digital Research that evolved from their earlier CP/M-86 based products Concurrent DOS and DOS Plus.

• 5.x
• 6.x
• 7.x
• 8.x