Adobe Illustrator (1988) 49 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

Microsoft Works (1986) 46 Word Processor Spreadsheet Communications Database DOS

Microsoft Works was an all-in-one scaled-down Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Database geared towards the home user. It was released in variants for early DOS, Windows, and Macintosh. Microsoft Works competed against Lotus Jazz, FrameWork, AlphaWorks/LotusWorks, PFS First Choice, and many others.

• 1.x (DOS)
• 2.x (DOS)
• 3.x (DOS)

dBASE (1983) 46 Database DOS Windows

Ashton-Tate dBase was an early popular database management system for CP/M and MS-DOS. It was regarded as one of the killer applications for CP/M, and achieved good success. At the time of conception Ashton-Tate was a garage based company but quickly grew.

• II v2.x
• III v1.0
• III v1.1
• III Plus v1.0
• III Plus v1.1
• IV v1.0
• IV v1.1
• IV v1.5
• IV v2.0
• 5.x

Lotus 1-2-3 (1983) 36 Spreadsheet DOS 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 (DOS)
• 1A (PCJr Cart)
• 2.x (DOS)
• 3.x (DOS)
• Add-ins
• 1.x (Unix)
• 4.x (DOS)

CorelDraw! (1989) 34 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)

Procomm Plus (1985) 19 Communications DOS

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

VisiCalc (1982) 16 Spreadsheet DOS 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, 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.

• 1.x
• Advanced Apple III
• IV
• Advanced IBM

PC Paintbrush (1984) 12 Graphics DOS

ZSoft PC Paintbrush is a bitmap drawing program visually similar to MacPaint. The earlier DOS versions were often bundled with Microsoft and Microsoft compatible mice, and were notable for supporting a huge variety of video adapters. It competed against Mouse Systems PC Paint (not related despite the similar name). ZSoft PC Paintbrush eventually became Microsoft Paintbrush included in Windows 3.x. For Microsoft's rebranded version see Microsoft Mouse and Microsoft Paintbrush

• 2.x (DOS)
• 3.x (DOS)
• Plus 1.x (DOS)
• IV (DOS)

3D Studio (1992) 11 Graphics DOS

3D Studio, not to be confused with the later "3d Studio Max" product, is a DOS-based tool from Autodesk for creating 3d models and animations.

• 2.0
• 3.0
• 4.x

Harvard Graphics (1986) 10 Graphics DOS

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

Multiplan (1983) 10 Spreadsheet DOS OS2

Microsoft Multiplan was an early 8-bit spreadsheet application for CP/M and MS-DOS with ports to numerous other platforms in the early 80s. Initially it competed against VisiCalc and later Lotus 1-2-3. A companion product, Microsoft Chart, provided graphing support. Multiplan was never ported to Windows, where it was replaced with Microsoft Excel. Excel also replaced Multiplan on the Macintosh platform.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x

DeluxePaint (1988) 9 Graphics DOS

DeluxePaint, from Electronic Arts, is a bitmap pixel graphics editor that was ported to DOS from the Amiga.

• 1.x
• 2.x

MatLab (1986) 9 Mathematics DOS

MatLab is a high speed, interactive programming utility for manipulating, calculating, and plotting complicated mathematical equations. It is considered easy to use for those familiar with typical algebra equations.

• 1.x (DOS)
• 3.5 (DOS)

Adobe Acrobat (1993) 9 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

Microsoft Chart (1984) 9 Presentations DOS

Microsoft Chart is a presentation graphics tool. You can use it to create line, bar, pie charts and more. It competed against titles such as PFS Graph, Chart Master, DR Graph, Harvard Presentation Graphics, and BPS Business Graphics. It was sometimes sold as a companion product to Multiplan. Microsoft later included charting functionality in Excel and PowerPoint.

• 1.x (DOS)
• 2.x (DOS)
• 3.x (DOS)

Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 8 Graphics Publishing Novelty DOS

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)

Oracle Server (1991) 7 Server Database DOS

Oracle Server is an enterprise grade relational database used in many corporations. It was mainly targeted at high end server operating systems, such as IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, HP UX, Digital VMS, Linux, and Microsoft Windows NT. Oracle makes current versions of their software avaialble for download, but older versions usually disappear.

• 6

Autodesk AutoCAD (1984) 7 Graphics Engineering DOS Unix

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 (DOS)
• r10 (Unix)
• r11 (DOS)

The Draw (1988) 6 Graphics DOS

The Draw was a popular shareware ANSI graphics and animation editor used to make graphics for BBSes and DOS programs.

• 3.x
• 4.x

Quattro Pro (1987) 6 Spreadsheet DOS Windows

Quattro Pro, initially just named "Quattro", is a spreadsheet application from Borland International. It competed against Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel, and had several advantages including tabbed sheets, and the ability to handle up to a million rows. Quattro Pro was the subject a lawsuit by Lotus, simply because because Quattro Pro copied their menu user interface, but Lotus claimed this was not allowed. This also affected The Twin and VP-Planner.

• 1.0
• Pro 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• SE 1.0
• 4.x (DOS)
• 5.x
• 5.6 (DOS)

Framework (1984) 6 Word Processor Spreadsheet Graphics Communications Database DOS

Originally created by Forefront Corporation for Ashton-Tate and first released in 1984, Framework was an early integrated office suite for DOS. It has a built in word processor, spreadsheet, database, outliner, graphing, and telecommunications.

• 1.0
• Premier 1.x
• II
• III
• XE
• IV

Turbo Pascal Toolbox (1985) 6 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
• 4.0

Microsoft Mail (1991) 5 Communications DOS

There were two distinct "Microsoft Mail" products. One for AppleTalk Networks, and one for PC Networks.

• 2.1
• 3.0
• 3.2

Mathcad (1989) 5 Mathematics DOS

Mathcad is computer software primarily intended for the verification, validation, documentation and re-use of engineering calculations.

• 2.5

MicroPro DataStar (1983) 5 Database DOS

MicroPro DataStar is a general purpose forms based desktop database for early IBM PCs and compatibles. It is often used in conjunction with ReportStar and sometimes bundled as InfoStar. MicroPro products were commonly bundled with OEM systems.

• 1.x