Norton Commander (1986) 106 Utility DOS

Norton Commander is a MS-DOS based file shell that was widely popular due to it's two column design. You could easily copy and move files between one folder or another, execute DOS commands and more. It competed against many other file managers including Gazelle Q-DOS and Xtree

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 5.5x

Norton Desktop (1991) 24 Utility 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 DOS

Norton Textra Writer (1989) 0 Word Processor DOS

Norton Textra Writer is an easy to use word processor for IBM PCs and compatibles running DOS. It was based on Ann Arbor Software' Textra, a small and fast word processor highly optimized for speed and rapid data entry, and published by the W W Norton & Co Inc publishing company (no relation to Peter Norton Computing or Symanetc).

• 2.0

Norton Utilities (1983) 95 Utility DOS

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
• 5.0
• 6.0
• 7.0
• 8.0

Nota Bene (1990) 0 Word Processor DOS

First released in 1982 and based on XyWrite, Nota Bene is a word processor specifically tailored to academic use. It is a very complex, unfriendly, program, but it is packed full of features. Features include footnotes, endnotes, redlining, styles, outlining, tables, indexes, bibliographies, a text retrieval system, foreign language support, spell checker, thesaurus, and a built in programming language. The Ibid component was an option that acted as sort of a database of bibliographic references.

• 3.0

OfficeWriter (1989) 5 Word Processor DOS

OfficeWriter, from Office Solutions, Inc and later Software Publishing Corporation, is a word processor that mimics the Wang word processor system. It was targeted at corporations and competed against Multimate, another Wang word processor workalike.

• 6.x

Open Access (1990) 2 Word Processor Spreadsheet Graphics Communications Database DOS

Open Access III is a DOS based integrated office suite that includes a database, word processor, spreadsheet, statistical analysis, graphics, telecommunications and a C style custom application programming language.

• III

Outside In (1991) 1 Utility DOS

Outside In, from Systems Compatibility Corp, is a TSR file viewer that can copy and paste blocks of text from documents in to DOS applications.

• 1.x

Packard Bell Navigator (1993) 5 Utility Other DOS

Packard Bell Navigator is an alternate user interface that replaces the Windows 3.1 Program Manager shell. It presents the content of your computer as a series of rooms.

• 3.5

Partition Commander (1988) 1 Utility DOS

Partition Commander is a Wizard based partition and disk utilization tool. It supports FAT, FAT32, NTFS, HPFS, and some Unix file systems.
It runs in real-mode DOS and installs from only two floppy disks. It competed directly against Partition Magic. Memory Commander, a 386 Expanded/Extended Memory Manager.

• 1.x

PartitionMagic (1995) 34 Utility DOS Windows

A tool from PowerQuest, and later Symantec, that enables manipulation of partitions through its own bootable media. PartitionMagic can shrink, grow, or move partitions without the need to backup and restore files in that partition. It supported a variety of file systems, and the core DOS-based parition tool fit on a bootable 1.44mb floppy disk. It was extremely popular, and made installing or removing multiple OSes much easier.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x

PC Magazine Labs Performance Tests (1991) 0 Utility DOS Windows OS2

These disks contain Hardware and Graphics tests from 1990 for Microsoft Windows 2, and OS/2 1.x Presentation Manager.

• 1.x

PC Tools (1985) 76 Utility DOS

PC Tools, from Central Point Software, is a system and disk utility suite similar to the Norton Utilities. Central Point also produced a similar set of tools for the Apple Macintosh known as MacTools. Central Point Backup, bundled as part of PC-Tools, was also offered as a standalone product.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x
• 7.x
• 8.x
• 1.0 for Windows
• 9.x

PC World PowerBase/Best Of Star-Dot-Star (1988) 8 Utility DOS

PC World PowerBase/Best Of Star-Dot-Star is a set of user contributed utilities and tips. These 5.25" floppy disks were distributed alongside the PC-World magazine as a supplement to their long running Star-Dot-Star column.

• Vol I
• Vol II
• Vol III
• Vol VI
• Vol V
• Vol IV

PC-Fullbak (1988) 4 Utility DOS

PC-Fullbak was a small low-cost hard drive backup program that aggressively competed head-on against Fifth Generation Systems Fastback. It was comparatively speedy, and supported appending to existing backups. under the name "PC-FullbakEZ". There were also versions for the Macintosh.

• 2.x

PC-Type (1991) 0 Word Processor DOS

PC-Type is a bare bones, budget oriented, word processor. PC-Type, along with PC-File were among the first popular products sold under the "Shareware" concept.

• 4.x

PC-Write (1984) 0 Word Processor DOS

PC-Write, written by Bob Wallace of Quicksoft, was an editor for the PC and along with PC-File and PC-Talk was one of the first widely distributed shareware programs.

• 2.4
• 2.7

Peachtext 5000 (1983) 5 Word Processor Financial Database DOS

PeachText 5000 is a complete personal productivity system for word processing, financial modeling, mailing lists and simple database management. It contains a thesaurus, spell checker, and file conversion tools.

• 2.x

Perfect Writer (1983) 1 Word Processor DOS

Perfect Writer, from Perfect Software, Inc, is a simple word processor for MS-DOS and CP/M-80 systems. It was bundled with many 8-bit CP/M systems and some early MS-DOS and IBM PC compatible computers. It was generally considered a low end entry-level product, but it was designed with portability in mind.

• 1.x

Perks (1987) 3 Utility PIM DOS

Perks-PC is a set of terminate-and-stay-resident utilities originally designed for the Zenith Z-100 and optimized for use on laptop computers. It features a notepad, typewriter tool, a four-function calculator, appointment calendar, card file, a rudimentary telecommunications program with file transfer abilities, and alarm clock. Notably, it claims to support all versions of DOS including DOS 1.x.

• 2.x

PFS First Choice (1987) 12 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Database DOS

PFS First Choice is a simple, easy to use integrated office suite marketed towards new users. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet, graphics, database, and telecommunications. First Choice is similar to, but not as feature rich as, the standalone PFS office products. It competed against AlphaWorks/LotusWorks and Microsoft Works.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x

PFS Preface (1990) 3 Utility DOS

PFS Preface is a menu system and file manager for DOS that uses an interface style similar to other PFS products.

• 1.00

PFS Proof (1984) 4 Utility DOS

PFS:Proof is a stand-alone spell checker that is compatible with PFS:Write documents, and part of the low-cost PFS office suite.

• Axx
• Bxx

PFS:Write (1983) 10 Word Processor DOS

PFS:Write, originally from Software Publishing Corporation and later sold to Spinnaker Software, was an early and easy to use word processor for the IBM PC and Apple II. It was also licensed by IBM as IBM Writing Assistant. It can exchange data between PFS:Graph, PFS:File, and PFS:Report. SPC later replaced PFS:Write with Professional Write. Early versions had no built in spell checker, and were instead used with PFS:Proof.

• Axx
• 01.00.00 (Tandy 2000)
• Bxx
• Cxx
• 2.x

PKZip (1990) 26 Utility DOS

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