Netscape (1994) 43 Web Browser Windows OS2 Unix Linux MacOS 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.

• 3.0.x
• 4.0x
• 4.5x

WordPerfect (1983) 35 Word Processor Other

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.

• 4.1 (Amiga)

WordStar (1981) 35 Word Processor CPM DOS

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.

• 2.x
• 3.00
• 4.0

CP/M 86 (1982) 22 CPM

CP/M-86 is a port of Digital Research's CP/M operating system to the Intel 8088/8086. The earlier CP/M-80 was extremely popular on 8080/Z80 microcomputers.

• 8680 2.x
• 1.x
• 3.x

BeOS (1995) 16 Other

BeOS was an OS developed to run on the BeBox hardware, a PowerPC based machine. The OS was first released in October 1995 for use on the AT&T Hobbit, and later moved over to the PowerPC platform the next year. A Intel x86 port of the OS began in March 1998 with version R3. The last version released was R5.1 in November 2001 for x86 only. This OS was meant to be used for multimedia applications. It is POSIX compatible but is not a UNIX derived operating system (Windows is actually POSIX complient also).

• Developer Release 1
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5

Microsoft COBOL (1980) 16 CPM

Cobol is a high level language designed for use in business that uses English-like commands. Microsoft got its early start by producing language products such as this one. Their other early language products included Microsoft Fortran, Microsoft Pascal, Microsoft Basic, and Macro Assembler. This product was also licensed to IBM as IBM Cobol Compiler.

• -80

Microsoft BASIC (1981) 14 CPM DOS

Although Microsoft did not invent BASIC, their founding product was a BASIC interpreter for the Altair computer. The descendants below includes Microsoft's BASIC-80 (MBASIC), BASIC-86 (pre-GWBasic), BASIC for Mac, BASIC Compiler 86/88, Basic Compiler for Mac, and Professional Development System 7.x. IBM Personal Computer Basic Compiler, GW-BASIC, QuickBasic, and Visual Basic are listed separately.

• -80
• -80 Compiler 5.x
• -86 5.x

Xenix (1984) 13 Other

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

Adobe Acrobat Reader (1994) 11 Document Other

Acrobat Reader is the free software from Adobe used to read, view, and print documents created by the commercial Adobe Acrobat product. Its primary strength is that documents appear and print identically across differing systems.

• Mobile (2002)

Microsoft FORTRAN (1977) 10 CPM

This is Microsoft's implementation of the FORTRAN scientific-oriented high level programming language. It was one of their early core languages developed for the 8-bit computers and later brought to the 8086 and IBM PC. For the IBM OEM version, see the IBM Fortran Compiler. In 1993 Microsoft rebranded the product as Microsoft Fortran Powerstation. (Note: -80 refers to the 8080/Z80 platform, not the language specification version)

• -80 3.0
• -80 3.4x

Turbo Pascal Toolbox (1985) 9 DOS CPM

The Borland Turbo Pascal Toolbox consists of several sets of sample source code for different purposes. They are designed for use in conjunction with the Turbo Pascal Compiler product. The sets include Turbo Graphix Toobox, Turbo Database Toolbox, Turbo GameWorks Tooolbox (new in 1986 with TP 3), and Turbo Editor Toolbox (new in 1986 with TP 3). Also see the Turbo Pascal Tutor.

• 1.x

NetWare (1989) 8 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
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x

Tandy Deskmate (1984) 7 Other

Deskmate is a GUI shell, program environment, and organizational application suite bundled by Tandy with their computers. The first two fully graphical versions were renamed "Personal Deskmate" I and II. Earlier versions were text based.

• 1.00 for TRS-80 M4

Balance of Power (1985) 6 Windows MacOS Other

Balance of power is a strategy game where one must lead a superpower nation to avoid war. It was ported to the Mac, Apple II, Windows, Atari ST, and Amiga.

• 1985 Edition

CP/M-80 (1982) 5 CPM

CP/M-80, from Digital Research, was a popular operating system for 8080 and Z80 microcomputers. Each release was customized by OEMs specifically for their hardware.

• 2.2 (8080)
• (Other platforms)

Lotus Improv (1991) 5 Spreadsheet Other

Improv is a spreadsheet program that attempted to re-imagine how one would create and interact with spreadsheets. It was first released in 1991 for NeXT computers, and for a time became one of the NeXT's "Killer Apps". In 1993 Lotus released Improv 2.0 for Microsoft Windows. It was not marketed as a direct replacement to Lotus 1-2-3, and 1-2-3 remained dominant until both were overtaken by Microsoft Excel.

• 1.0

Concurrent CPM-86 (1982) 4 CPM

Concurrent CPM-86 is a multitasking version of CP/M that evolved from Digital Researches' earlier multitasking MP/M product. A seperate add-on was available for 3.1 that added DOS compatiblity. This was integrated in to the product and it was renamed to Concurrent DOS.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x

VisiCalc (1982) 4 Spreadsheet Other

VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program for personal computers. It was extremely successful, and pivotal as it was significantly responsible for moving personal computing out of the realm of hobbyists and in to the realm of serious business tools. application suite that also included VisiWord, VisiFile, VisiSpell, VisiTrend/Plot, VisiSchedule and VisiTutor. a GUI based environment. But that did not catch on. The similarly named Visi On Calc spreadsheet is not at all related to VisiCalc, and later had to be renamed to Visi On Plan.

• Advanced Apple III

Concurrent DOS (1984) 2 CPM

Originally an optional module for Concurrent CP/M-86 3.1, this version of Digital Research's CP/M provided basic compatibility with PC-DOS in 1983. Simple DOS applications that did not require hardware access can be ran on this. A stripped down single tasking version was released as DOS Plus and later DR-DOS.

• 3.x
• 4.x
• XM 6.x
• 386 2.x
• 386 3.x

RISC OS (1990) 2 Other

RISC OS is an operating system designed to run on the ARM chipset.

• 3

AppleWorks (1986) 2 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)

CalcStar (1980) 2 Spreadsheet DOS CPM

CalcStar is a spreadsheet from MicroPro, somewhat like VisiCalc but using commands similar to WordStar. You can also format content similar to WordStar. It was available for CP/M and DOS, and often part of early 80s system's bundled software.

• 1.x

Apple Lisa Office System (1984) 2 Other

The Lisa Office System was the operating system, graphical desktop, and office suite designed for and shipped with the Apple Lisa computer. It was Apple's first attempt at creating a fully graphical operating environment. This included a graphical desktop, drop down menus, common input controls, multiple windowed applications and data sharing between applications.

• 3.x

Plan 9 1 Other

Plan 9 from Bell Labs was a research operating system to improve on the ideas of UNIX. It was a radical revolution - everything was a file, even network sockets, and the system, while CLI based, was improved to take advantage of graphical machines.

• 1.x

FrameMaker (1990) 1 Publishing Unix MacOS Other

FrameMaker, originally from Frame Technology Corporation and later Adobe, is a professional document system for creating large, complex documents with highly structured layout. It was often accompanied by FrameReader.

• 2.x