Ability (1985) 6 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Communications Database DOS

Originally released in 1984 by the Canadian company Xanaro that went bankrupt, and then by Migent, Ability is an integrated office suite for DOS that includes word processor, spreadsheet, database, telecommunications, business graphing, presentation graphics capabilities, and built in file management. It features good integration between the different components, with the ability to import, share, and dynamically update data between them. It was advertised as a very easy to use and a quick to learn system.

• 1.0
• Demo
• 1.2
• Plus 1.0

ACT! (1987) 3 PIM DOS

ACT!, or "Activity Control Technology", originally from Conductor Software, and later Contact Software and then Symantec, is an easy to use business relationship management system targeted at traveling sales professionals. It can track things like billable time and expenses.

• 1.10 (DOS)

AdvanceLink (1987) 0 Communications DOS

AdvanceLink is a terminal emulator that integrates with the HP NewWave desktop. It has built in scripting tools and features specifically for communicating with HP 3000, HP 9000, and HP 1000 hosts. It can emulate HP 2392A, HP 700/94, HP 700/92, HP ANSI, and DEC VT100 terminals. It appears a lesser version of this product was bundled with early Vectra computers under the generic name of "HP Terminal Program"

• for DOS

Automenu (1987) 0 Utility DOS

Automenu is a sophisticated commercial menuing system that lets you control your computer using custom menus, rather than using DOS commands. It features small, compact memory usage and built in help.

• 4.x

Back-It (1986) 0 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

Bank Street Writer (1984) 2 Word Processor DOS

Bank Street Writer is an easy to use word processor intended for beginners and educational use. It was very popular on the Apple II, but also had ports for Atari, Commodore 64, MSX, Macintosh, IBM PC, and IBM PCjr.

• IBM PC
• Plus

BBS-PC (1987) 0 Communications DOS

BBS-PC! is an early computerized bulletin board system for IBM PCs. It also has versions for the Amiga. It featured customizability, message boards, and multiple file sections.

• 4.x

Better Working Communicator (1987) 2 Communications DOS

Better Working Communicator, from Spinnaker Software, is an entry level telecommunications program sold alongside their "Better Working" series of applications, and included as part of "Better Working Eight-In-One". Better Working Communicator supports Macros, auto-dialing, split-screen, XModem file transfers, logging, and printing.

• 1.x

Brown Bag Word Processor (1985) 1 Word Processor DOS

The Brown Bag Word Processor was an inexpensive word processor that offered features comparable to more expensive programs. It is essentially an OEM licensed version of Quicksoft's PC-Write with a different user interface. Formatting is done using "dot" commands and it includes a mail-merge module.

• 2.x

BULL Micral Prologue (1984) 0 DOS

BULL Micral Prologue system for the Olympia People Computer.

• 2.x

Celebrity (1987) 1 Word Processor DOS

Celebrity is a powerful word processing program that includes a Speller, Thesaurus, Forms System, Report Writer, Calculator, Calendar, and File Cabinet. It was advertised as a solution for novice users, however the command based interface makes it less than user friendly.

• 1.0

Copy II PC (1985) 6 Utility DOS

Central Point Copy II PC is a disk duplication program that can successfully copy many copy protected disks using only standard IBM PC hardware. It is generally considered the best software-only solution for duplicating such disks. "snatchit".

• 2.xx
• 3.xx
• 4.xx

CorrectStar (1984) 1 Word Processor Utility DOS

CorrectStar, from MicroPro International, is an add-on spell checker for WordStar 3.3. It was sold both bundled with WordStar and separately. Later versions of WordStar integrated the spell checker.

• 3.3x

Crosstalk (1983) 7 Communications DOS

Originally released in 1982, Crosstalk XVI, from Digital Communications Associates Inc of Alpharetta, Georgia, is a powerful telecommunications program for the IBM PC with many scripting features. "XVI" means "16", and refers to the powerful new 16-bit x86 CPUs found in IBM PC's and compatibles. It was followed up by the MK 4 and Communicatior products.

• XVI 3.3x
• XVI 3.5x
• XVI 3.6x

Dac-Easy Word (1987) 3 Word Processor DOS

DAC-Easy Word is a budget word processor package. It can have up to four document windows open, can work with large-ish documents, supports macros, features drop-down menus, built-in help, and includes a mailing list manager.

• II

DESQView (1984) 23 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

Disk Technician (1987) 0 Utility DOS

Disk Technician, from Prime Solutions Inc., is a hard disk utility and surface monitor. It contains an interleave adjuster and pattern tester similar to Spinrite. The Gold version also includes a defragmenter and disk-level virus protection.

• 4.x

DisplayWrite (1984) 2 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

DoubleDOS (1984) 0 Utility DOS

DoubleDOS is a simple and easy to use multitasking tool for DOS. It can preemptively run up to two DOS programs at a time. Its main advantage is that it requires very little RAM overhead compared to other multitasking or task switching environments. Because DOS programs can and usually do bypass OS calls, many programs must be "patched" in order to work. things at once, then this would have been a good choice. Reportedly, the first version may have worked with DOS 1.x.

• 2.x

DS Backup (1986) 0 Utility DOS

DS Backup Plus is a simple hard disk backup utility. It was not as full featured or robust as other backup products, but it got the job done. Backups can be done from within the program or from the command line. It supports wildcards, filespec inclusion/exclusion, backup to any DOS drive type, automatic disk formatting, incremental backups, and claims to be faster than DOS backup and restore.

• Plus 1.x

DS Manager (1987) 0 Utility DOS

DS Manager is a menu and file management shell for DOS. It features password protection with the ability to display different menus for different users.

• 1.0

DS Recover (1987) 0 Utility DOS

DS Recover, from Design Software, is a set of file utilities for DOS that lets you unerase files and directories, and unformat disks. It competed against the Norton Utilities, PC Tools, and Mace Utilities.

• 2.x

Eagle PC Test and Initialization (1985) 0 DOS

This disk contains diagnostics and hard drive setup programs for the Eagle PC, Turbo, Spirit, and PC-Plus. This does NOT work with the Eagle 1600. It includes diagnostics tests for the Eagle CGA card, and their proprietary monochrome graphics card.

• 1.x

EagleWriter (1983) 0 Word Processor DOS

EagleWriter by Lexisoft is a word processing and office management package that offers flexible print format and output capabilities, macro capabilities, and ease of use. EagleWriter is customized for the Eagle computer function keys and help feature.

• 2.0

Easy Writer (1982) 4 Word Processor DOS

Easy Writer was one of the first word processors for the IBM PC. It was originally written by John Draper AKA "Captain Crunch", with the PC version published by IBM. EasyWriter 1.x was written in the FORTH programming language and, as the story goes, it was ported to the IBM PC in a matter of days. There was also an Apple II version.

• 1.0
• 1.1
• 1.15
• II