Norton Backup (1990) 10 Utility DOS Windows

Norton Backup, from Symantec, is a fast and easy to use backup tool for MS-DOS. The original 1.0 suffered from reliability problems, but these were fixed in 1.1. It does not include a backup scheduler. It competed against backup utilities such as PC Tools Deluxe PC Backup, Taketwo Manager, Gazelle Systems Back-It, Backup Pro, FastBack Plus, and Keep Track Plus.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 2.x (Win)

Lotus Improv (1991) 11 Spreadsheet Windows

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.

• 2.x

Lucid 3-D (1988) 3 Spreadsheet DOS Windows

Lucid 3-D, created by PCSG, Inc. and sold by DacEasy, Inc., is a spreadsheet program for MS-DOS. The feature that sets it apart from others is that it is memory-resident, so you can bring it up on top of other DOS programs and exchange data with them. Unlike simple TSRs, however, Ludid 3D is a full featured spreadsheet. It features linking, macros, windowing, intelligent recalculation, background recalculation, and user-definable functions.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 1.x (Win)

Microsoft Word Assistant (1993) 2 Utility Windows

Microsoft Word Assistant contains a font manager, additional TrueType fonts, additional templates, and clipart. Requires Microsoft Word 6.0.

• 1.0

Memory Commander (1992) 3 Utility DOS

Memory Commander, from V Communications, Inc, is a memory manager similar to QEMM or 386MAX, but can expand the DOS base memory beyond 640K with some kinds of applications.

• 3.x
• 4.x

Interest Vision Professional - Address Book (1993) 6 Utility Financial Windows

This is a "fluff" program from Parsons Technology that contains a simple address book/dialer and a loan calculator.

• 1.0

Microsoft Delta (1993) 1 Windows

Microsoft Delta was a short-lived source code version control system developed internally at Microsoft. It was notable for its ability to handle very large projects, but featured a very poor user interface. It was replaced by Microsoft SourceSafe.

• 1.0

Expert Perfect Forms (1990) 1 Database DOS

Expert Software's Perfect Forms is a budget form creation and data entry tool. It comes with a large number of ready-to-use forms for a variety of business needs. You can customize existing forms, or create new ones.

• 1.0
• 3.00

Fontmonger (1992) 5 Utility Windows MacOS

FontMonger, from Ares Software, is a font tool that can convert fonts between many different formats, move characters between fonts, and edit characters. Publisher's Type Foundry](/product/publishers-typefoundry) font editor. At release FontMonger was considered the only practical Windows-based program for modifying fonts. However, it was not considered a professional tool as it lacked kerning and hinting controls.

• 1.0.x
• 1.5.x

XVision (1993) 0 Utility Windows

XVision, from Visionware, is a commercial X-Windowing "server" for connecting client Windows 3.x computers to Unix and VMS systems.

• 5.0 (Win)

PFS:WindowWorks (1991) 10 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Communications PIM Database Windows

PFS WindowWorks, from Spinnaker Software and Ancier Technologies, is an integrated all-in-one office application that includes a word processor, spreadsheet, chart editor, telecommunications, database, label maker and address book. Supposedly it was the first of such office suites for Windows 3.0, but soon competed with Microsoft Works for Windows. for Windows"](/product/better-working-eight).

• 1.x
• 2.x

Trend Micro Chip Away (1993) 5 Utility DOS

Released in the early 90s by the Japanese company Trend Micro Devices, Inc (later just Trend Micro), Chip Away Viruses is a DOS based virus scanner that is intended to run from a hardware product built in to a PC motherboard before the system boots. It includes a custom embeddable DOS (called X-DOS), but it can be run from regular DOS. Trend Micro also produced the products PC Rx (A regular software virus scanner), and PC-cillin (a hardware/software combo that keeps critical boot information in a special device). Users sometimes misinterpreted the name "ChipAway Virus" as being a virus itself.

• 2.x

Change Directory Plus (1993) 0 Utility DOS

Change Directory Plus is a small commercial utility distributed with Softdisk publishing's Big Blue Disk magazine. It indexes all folders on your hard drive, and permits you to change in to a deep subdirectory simply by specifying the final subdirectories name.

• 1.x

Forms Maker and Filler (1991) 4 Database DOS Windows

Forms Maker and Filler is a budget program for making computerized forms. It has two components, a Designer used to create forms, and a Filler used to fill out the contents of the forms.

• 1.x
• 4.00

PushButton WORKS (1993) 2 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Database Windows

PushButton WORKS, from MicroBurst Inc., was a very low cost rudimentary integrated office suite. It includes a word processor, spread sheet, graphing program, and database. It competed with ClarisWorks, Footprint Works, and Microsoft Works for Windows.

• 3.0

DataPerfect (1993) 5 Word Processor Database DOS

DataPerfect, originally written by Lew Bastian, published through WordPerfect Corp, and later through Novell, was a fast, memory efficient, but capable relational database for DOS. WordPerfect Corp sold the product alongside their other DOS based office products, such as WordPerfect and PlanPerfect. In 1995 Novel released DataPerfect as freeware and development was continued by its original author until about 2008.

• 2.x

SSSI FacetTerm (1993) 1 Utility Unix

FacetTerm is a windowing interface software package for character-based Unix terminals. FacetTerm gives users pull-down menuing and multitasking ability.

• 3.x

Back-It (1986) 3 Utility DOS

Back-It, from Gazelle Systems, is a fast and compact hard disk backup utility. It was sometimes part of OEM system bundles. It was kind of low-end, and changed backup formats between releases but otherwise did what it was supposed to do.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x

DECTalk PC (1993) 6 Utility DOS

DECTalk was a text to speech system used in automated telephone, radio, and TV systems. It was notably used as an artificial voice by Stephen Hawking. Most DECTalk devices were standalone serial devices, however DEC did produce an ISA expansion card for the IBM PC that contained this functionality. This software is required to operate these ISA cards.

• 4.x

XtraDrive (1993) 0 Utility DOS

XtraDrive is a hard drive compression program that competed against programs like Stacker and SuperStor. XtraDrive was slightly slower, but was priced lower. before DOS and intercepts disk writes at the BIOS level. This allows many disk utilities to work that otherwise would not. Unlike the other drive compression programs at the time, XtraDrive features easy de-installation.

• 3.0

MapLinx (1993) 2 Database Windows

MapLinx for Windows is a geographic database utility that lets business professionals SEE what they're doing by automatically converting database records with zip code fields to symbols on a U.S. map.

• 1.x

Winlink 3 (1993) 0 Utility Windows

WinLink 3, from Widget Software Ltd, is a utility for communicating between a Psion Series 3 or 3a and Windows. It connects to a Psion mobile device via a serial cable, and presents the contents of the device as a navigable file window.

• 1.x

Computer Shopper FastFiler (1993) 1 Utility DOS

FastFiler, from Ziff-Davis Publishing Company and Strange Software LTD, is a rudimentary easy to use file manager shell. It was sold alongside Computer Shopper magazines. While it offers a friendlier interface than the DOS command prompt, it has fewer features and abilities than competing file managers.

• 1.x

Aldus TouchBase (1993) 0 PIM Windows

Aldus TouchBase is a simple Rolodex-like contact manager for Microsoft Windows. Supports printing cards, labels, and envelopes. There was also a Macintosh version.

• 1.x

RightWriter (1987) 7 Utility DOS Windows

RightWriter is a grammar / structure checking utility. You can feed it a document, and it will produce a marked up copy listing high level critiques such as readability, delivery strength, and jargon. It competed with Grammatik, but RightWriter generally produced superior results.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 3.2 for DeskMate
• 4.0
• 5.0 for Windows