Watcom C/C++ (1989) 22 DOS Windows OS2

The Watcom C/C++ is a powerful compiler for DOS, Windows, and OS/2. Its key selling point was superior cross platform support. It supported DOS, extended DOS 32-bit, Win16, Win32, and OS/2. Notably, it was used to produce the video game DOOM as a 32-bit DOS extended program.

• 10.0
• 10.5
• 11.0

After Dark (1989) 63 Novelty DOS

After Dark, from Berkeley Systems, Inc, is a set of entertaining screen savers for Mac and Windows. After Dark for Windows started off as "Magic Screen Saver" for Windows 2.x. After Dark was most famous for its "Flying Toasters" screen saver. Afterdark was very popular on both the early Macintosh computers and Windows 3.0, as neither included any kind of screen saver or screen blanker that would help prevent screen burn-in.

• 1.0 for DOS

Adobe Acrobat Reader (1994) 18 Document DOS MacOS

Acrobat Reader is the free software from Adobe used to read, view, and print documents created by the commercial Adobe Acrobat product. Its primary strength is that documents appear and print identically across differing systems.

• 1.0

McAfee VirusScan (1995) 2 Utility DOS Windows OS2

McAfee VirusScan was a very popular and reliable virus scanner during the late 90s. Notably, they distributed a free shareware version of their product. VirusScan was often pre-loaded with OEM computers.

• 2.x

IntelliPoint (1996) 6 DOS Windows

IntelliPoint is a set of mouse driver software for Microsoft's IntelliMouse series mice. This software is redistributable but posted here for convenience.

• 1.x

Sound Blaster Drivers (1990) 61 DOS Windows

The Sound Blaster is a series of sound cards from Create Labs. For a time, the Sound Blaster was considered a de-facto standard for DOS based gaming. Initially it competed against the uncommon IBM Music Feature card, and the Adlib cards. The original sound blaster provided 8-bit mono digital sound in addition to Adlib-compatible FM music synthesis and stereo CMS Game Blaster compatible square-wave music. Most DOS games work best with the earlier ISA cards. Later PCI cards use completely different hardware and only provide Sound Blaster compatiblity through software emulation.

• Sound Blaster AWE32

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.

• Plus 2.0

PartitionMagic (1995) 73 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

QuickBooks (1993) 6 Financial DOS

First introduced in 1992, QuickBooks from from Intuit, is an easy to use accounting and bookkeeping program targeted at small businesses and accounting novices. It features check writing, accounts payable and receivable, invoices, cash flow forecasting, and reporting. It provides more functionality than the home-user based Quicken.

• 2.x (DOS)

Logitech Mouseware (1987) 19 DOS Windows

Logitech mice and pointing devices were popular competition to Microsoft or Microsoft clone mice. Logitech mice often had extra features that required Logitech drivers, and early Logitech mice were not Microsoft or Mouse Systems protocol compatible.

• 7.x

Lotus 1-2-3 (1983) 127 Spreadsheet DOS

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.

• 4.x (DOS)

Norton Utilities (1983) 89 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.

• 8.0

LapLink (1987) 22 Communications DOS

LapLink, from Traveling Software Inc., enables users to easily and quickly move files between two DOS computers using only a serial null-modem cable or a special parallel port connector. No other hardware is needed. Laplink was extremely popular.during the late 80s and early 90s. It was infinitely easier to set up any two arbitrary PCs (often portables or laptops) with LapLink than other methods, such as DOS based networking. MS-DOS 6 bundled a similar set of file transfer tools called INTERLNK and INTERSVR.

• 5.x

System Commander (1996) 32 Utility DOS

System commander, from V Communications, Inc, was a commercial boot manager for PCs. It offered a graphical menu and the ability to hide other partitions from the selected OS. It supported a variety of OSes including DOS, Windows 9x, Windows NT/2000, Linux, OS/2, and various Unixes.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• Deluxe 4.00

Microsoft Windows Boot Disk (1995) 541 DOS

These disks are original boot floppy disk media for use with Microsoft Windows CD-ROMs. Not all Windows 9x/ME CDs are bootable, not all CDs included boot disks, and DOS will not see a CD-ROM drive unless a driver is loaded. OEMs were expected to provide compatible CD-ROM with the boot media provided with their systems. However towards the very late 90s, most vendors standardized on IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM hardware and the use of the OEM Adaption Kit (OAK) driver. If your CD drive is not IDE compatible (such as an MKE or Panasonic interface) you must manually add your own driver. Note: you can use the Windows 98 boot disk with Windows 95 to make things easier. If you have any UNTOUCHED OEM boot disks with different drivers, please submit them.

• 95 RTM
• 95 OSR2.x

WordPerfect (1983) 114 Word Processor DOS

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.

• 6.x (DOS)

Norton Commander (1986) 102 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

• 4.x
• 5.x

PTS-DOS (1995) 6 DOS

PTS-DOS is a Russian DOS clone created by the Russian company PhysTechSoft.

• 7

DR DOS (1990) 89 DOS

DR DOS is an MS-DOS compatible operating system from Digital Research that evolved from their earlier CP/M-86 based products Concurrent DOS and DOS Plus.

• 7.x

SpinRite (1988) 15 Utility DOS

SpinRite, by Gibson Research, is a tool that can diagnose, repair, and rejuvenate the low-level formatting and optimize the interleave of MFM and RLL (ST412/506 interface) hard disk drives. Its pattern testing ability is also useful for verifying the operation of SCSI and IDE hard drives.

• 3.x
• 4.x

PATHWORKS (1994) 4 Web Browser Communications DOS

PATHWORKS is a network client suite that enables PCs to communicate with VMS and Ultrix systems from Digital Equipment Corporation.

• 5.1
• 6.0

Colorado Backup (1996) 8 Utility DOS Windows

Colorado Backup is the software provided with HP Colorado tape drives.

• Set
• 4.x for DOS

Microsoft Mouse (1984) 48 DOS Windows

These are drivers provided by Microsoft for the Microsoft BusPort, serial, and PS/2 mice. Introduced in 1983, The Microsoft Mouse is historically important as it was one of Microsoft's earliest hardware products (The other being an Apple II Z-80 CP/M card). The first Mouse for the IBM PC was actually from Mouse Systems, not Microsoft. However, most clone mice emulated Microsoft's serial protocol and DOS driver software interface. The first application designed to make full use of the mouse was Microsoft Word for DOS, and they hyped a product called "Microsoft Windows" (not released until several years later) that was to compete against the upcoming Apple Macintosh and the Mouse Systems based Viscorp Visi On.

• 9.x

Qualitas 386MAX (1992) 25 DOS

Qualitas 386MAX is a memory manager that competed with Quarterdeck QEMM and Memory Commander. It features ease use, with automated configuration and optimization. It claims to make more DOS memory available than other similar tools at the time.

• 7.x

Ontrack Disk Manager (1987) 14 DOS

Ontrack Disk Manager is a BIOS overlay and partitioning tool that helps you overcome various BIOS hard drive size limits. It was commonly bundled with hard drives.

• 5.x
• 6.x
• 7.x