Procomm Plus (1985) 27 Communications DOS Windows

ProComm, from Datastorm technologies, was a powerful and very popular telecommunications program for DOS and Windows. TERMULATOR, written to fill the gap left by shareware PC-Talk when its author died. protocols for uploading and downloading, and automatic redial. The commercial "ProComm Plus" includes a scripting language, more terminal types, additional file transfer protocols, context sensitive help, support for 8 COM ports, and a professionally written manual (telecommunications)](/product/microsoft_access_business_information_access_program), Crosstalk, Relay Gold, and PFS Access. Later, it competed with QModem and Telemate.

• 1.1 (shareware)
• 1.1
• 2.x (Shareware)
• 2.x
• 1.0 For Windows
• 2.x for Windows
• 3.0 For Windows

Microsoft Windows CE Toolkit (1998) 26 Windows

Microsoft Windows CE Toolkit it a set of development tools to enable Windows CE development in Visual Basic, Visual C++ and other languages.

• 5.0
• 6.0

DOOM (1993) 25 DOS

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

• Alphas
• 1.0
• 1.1
• 1.2
• 1.25

WordStar (1981) 25 Word Processor DOS CPM Windows

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
• 1.5 for Windows
• 7
• 2.0 for Windows

Autodesk AutoCAD (1984) 25 Graphics Engineering DOS MacOS Windows

AutoCAD, from Autodesk and first released in 1982, is a powerful Computer Aided Design tool. It was, and still is, often considered the standard for CAD tools. Primarily for the IBM PC platform, it was ported to x86 machines with higher video resolutions such as the Zenith Z-100 and NEC APC. Intermittently, versions for the Macintosh appeared. Later versions use a dongle copy protection.

• 1.x (DOS)
• 2.x (DOS)
• r10 (Mac)
• r10 (DOS)
• r11 (DOS)
• r11 (Mac)
• r11 (Win)
• r12 (Mac)

Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 23 Graphics Publishing Novelty DOS Windows

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)
• 1.0
• 2.0
• 3.0
• 4.0
• 6.0
• 8.0

Microsoft 3D Movie Maker (1994) 23 Windows

3D Movie Maker (often abbreviated as 3DMM) is a program created by Microsoft's "Microsoft Kids" subsidiary in 1995. Using this program, users are able to place 3D characters into pre-made environments, add actions, sound effects, music, text, speech, and special effects then show these movies off to friends, family, and the world. These are saved in the .3mm format.

• 1.0

Harvard Graphics (1986) 21 Graphics DOS Windows

Harvard Graphics, from Software Publishing Corporation and initially called Harvard Presentation Graphics, is a graphing/plotting/presentation creation application for DOS. It was extremely popular in the late 1980s. At release, it competed against many graphing products such as PFS:Graph (AKA IBM Graphing Assistant ), Microsoft Chart, ChartMaster, and Cricket Graph, just to name a small few. A Windows port was released in 1991, but it lost out to Microsoft Powerpoint.

• A.00
• A.01
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 1.0 for Windows
• 2.0 for Windows
• 3.0 for Windows
• 4.0 for Windows

Norton Desktop (1991) 21 Utility Windows DOS

Norton Desktop is a powerful desktop shell and file manager bundled with many additional tools. There are versions for both DOS and Microsoft Windows.

• 1.0 for Windows
• 2.0 for Windows
• 1.0 for DOS
• 2.2 for Windows
• 3.0 for Windows

The Print Shop (1984) 21 Publishing DOS MacOS Windows

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 (Win)
• Deluxe 1.x (Mac)
• Deluxe 2.0 (Win)
• Deluxe III
• Premier 5.x (Win)
• Deluxe 6.0 (Win)
• Ensemble III
• 2002 (Mac)

Paradox (1985) 21 DOS Windows

Originally released in 1985 by Ansa Software and later sold to Borland, Paradox is a high-speed relational database product that integrates with Borland's "Turbo" products. It was notable for its Query By Example feature, and its Paradox Application Language. It was popular in the late 80s and early 90s, and competed against database product such as dBase, Symantec Q&A, Foxpro, Clipper, Clarion, DataEase, R:Base, and DataFlex.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• Engine 2.0
• 4.0
• 1.0 (Win)
• 4.5
• 4.5 (Win)
• 5.0 (Win)
• 7.x (Win)

Microsoft Macro Assembler (1981) 21 DOS

The Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) is an x86 assembler that uses the Intel syntax for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. For a time, it competed with Borland Turbo Assembler. IBM re-branded early versions under the name IBM Macro Assembler. Later versions were bundled with Microsoft Visual Studio.

• 1.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x

Borland Turbo C (1987) 21 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

Microsoft Publisher (1991) 20 Publishing Windows

Publisher is a desktop publishing tool from Microsoft geared towards ease of use with the home user. Microsoft publisher can be used to created professional looking newsletters, flyers, forms, and more. It includes guides and wizards that walk users through creation of common document types, while still offering powerful flexibility.

• 1.0
• 2.0
• 95 (3.0)
• 97 (4.0)
• 98 (5.0)

Crystal Reports (1992) 20 Windows

Crystal Reports, from Crystal Services/Seagate Technology Inc., is a powerful visual report creation tool for Microsoft Windows. Rather than a specific product, it is designed to work with almost any existing database product. reports from directly from within their applications. Crystal Reports was sometimes bundled with Microsoft Visual Basic. And it can be used with Crystal Reports Server for scheduled report generation.

• 1.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 7.x
• 8.x

DESQView (1984) 19 Utility DOS

DESQView, from Quarterdeck, was a DOS application multi-tasker and in later versions functioned as an X client for applications on remote UNIX systems. It competed against IBM Topview. The original DESQ was just a task switcher, but subsequent versions offered preemptive multitasking of well behaved DOS programs on real-mode 8088 PCs. It gained popularity when DESQView 386 added virtual x86 support. This enabled the ability to multi task many poorly behaved programs, and was often used on BBSes due to its excellent COM port handling. It was later overtaken by OS/2 and Windows.

• 1.x
• DESQView X 1.x
• 2.x
• DESQView X 2.x

MS CD Extensions (MSCDEX) (1997) 19 DOS

MSCDEX is the real-mode MS-DOS file system redirector used in conjunction with your CD-ROM driver for accessing CD drives. The CD-ROM driver, which is provided by your CD-ROM drive manufacturer, provides the hardware and protocol specific software interface to your drive. MSCDEX interfaces with this driver to present the raw CD-ROM data as a file system accessible as a DOS drive letter.

• 1.25

QEMM (1990) 19 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

GEM (1985) 19 DOS

GEM is a graphical application environment that runs on top of MS/PC-DOS. It was built on the technology of Digital Research's GSX portable runtime (Used in DR Draw and DR Graph ) . Notably, a port of GEM and CP/M was used as the primary GUI on the M68k based Atari ST. GEM was also bundled with Amstrad computers.

• 1.x

DisplayWrite (1984) 19 Word Processor DOS OS2

DisplayWrite is a word processor that is based on the IBM Displaywriter dedicated word processing system. It directly competed with software ports of dedicated word processors such as the Wang Word Processing System (or its clone MultiMate ), Lanier Word Processing Software, Xerox, DEC, or similar.

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

ArcView GIS (1996) 19 Graphics Other Database Windows

ArcView, from Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. is a geographical information system program for Win9x/NT.

• 3.0
• 3.3

Wolfenstein 3D (1992) 17 DOS

An early first person shooter developed by ID Software. In this game you play a captured spy that must defeat Nazi soldiers to escape from Castle Wolfenstein.

• All

Dr Halo (1985) 16 Graphics DOS

Dr Halo, by Media Cybernetics, is a DOS based image editor. It was sometimes distributed as a value-added tool with mice or video cards. Its image editing capabilities were fairly weak, and its main strength came from its adaptability to new hardware, positioning it mainly as an entry-level product provided with new hardware.

• II
• III
• IV

LapLink (1987) 16 Communications DOS Windows

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
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 7.5 for Windows 95
• 2000
• Gold (9.0)

PKZip (1990) 16 Utility DOS Windows

Pkzip is the most common archiver for MS-DOS based systems. It implements a an open compression method and is much faster than other archivers of its time.

• 1.x
• 2.0x
• 2.5 for Windows