Internet Explorer (1995) 128 Web Browser Windows Unix MacOS Mac OS X

Microsoft Internet Explorer is a web browser application created by Microsoft primarily for Microsoft Windows. It was initially based on Spyglass Mosaic. At various points, Internet Explorer was also available for MacOS, Solaris, and HP-UX.

• 4
• 5

FoxPro (1990) 70 DOS Windows Unix MacOS

FoxPro, originally from Fox Software and later Microsoft, is a relational database that clones the functionality of dBase IV, but offers vast speed improvements. It was based on Fox Software's FoxBASE (a dBASE II clone) and FoxBASE+ (a dBase III Plus clone). It adds a new mac-like user interface that was first developed for FoxBASE+/Mac.

• 2.6

Lotus 1-2-3 (1983) 66 Spreadsheet 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 (Unix)

CorelDraw! (1989) 54 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)

Microsoft BASIC (1981) 53 CPM DOS Unix

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
• 5.x for Xenix

Microsoft Word (1983) 52 Word Processor Unix

The Microsoft Word word processor was first introduced for MS-DOS in 1983. Its design made use of a mouse and WYSIWYG graphics. Its crude WYSIWYG/mouse support was a direct response to the Apple Lisa/Mac, and VisiCorp Visi On. Initially it competed against many popular word processors such as WordStar, Multimate, and WordPerfect. Word for DOS was never really successful.

• 3.x (Unix)
• 5.x (UNIX)

AIX (1986) 50 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.

• AIX PS/2
• 3.x
• 4.1.x
• 4.3.x
• 5.1

WordPerfect (1983) 42 Word Processor Unix Linux

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.

• 5.x (Unix)
• 6.0 (Unix)
• 8.x (Unix)

Sun Solaris (1989) 42 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
• 2.x
• 7.x
• 8

Adobe Illustrator (1988) 41 Graphics Unix 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.

• 5.5

Adobe Acrobat (1993) 40 Publishing Windows Unix MacOS

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.

• 3.x

Netscape (1994) 39 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

Norton Utilities (1983) 35 Utility Unix

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.

• For System V

CP/M 86 (1982) 34 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

AT&T System V Unix (1991) 33 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

A/UX (1988) 25 Unix

Apple A/UX is an early port of Unix to Apple's 68k based Macintosh platform. It features a full Unix system with a Mac OS GUI and the ability to run classic Mac OS applications.

• 1.x

Concurrent CPM-86 (1982) 24 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

WordStar (1981) 24 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

IRIX (1998) 22 Unix

IRIX was a operating system created by SGI (Silicon Graphics Inc) that was based off of System V Unix. In addition, this OS had additional BSD elements. It's initial release was in 1988 and was designed to on MIPS processors. IRIX machines were typically used for visual effects in the entertainment industry and in the scientific community for several years after the fall of Amiga in the early 90s.

• 3.x
• 4.x
• 6.5
• 6.5.9
• Patches
• 6.5.21
• 6.5.22

NeXTStep (1987) 21 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

CP/M-80 (1982) 19 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)

Concurrent DOS (1984) 18 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

Microsoft FORTRAN (1977) 18 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

Xenix (1984) 17 Unix

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

• IBM PC 1.00
• Tandy 16/6000 3.x
• 8086
• 286
• 386
• SysV 386 v3.x
• OpenServer 5.x
• UnixWare 7.x

QNX (1982) 17 Unix

QNX is a compact Unix-like real-time operating system that was originally designed for the IBM PC and later used in embedded devices. The versions here are for IBM PC compatibles.

• 1.2
• 1989 Demo
• 2.2
• 4.2
• 1.44mb Demo