Netscape (1994) 61 Web Browser Windows OS2 Unix Linux MacOS Other

Netscape Navigator/Communicator was the first commercial web browser, displacing the free NCSA Mosaic. 1.0 was first released in December 1994, and initially offered advanced features such as progressively rendering pages as they loaded. It quickly gained many other features and capabilities and became the most popular web browser in the mid 1990s. One reason for its popularity, it was licensed freely for personal and non-profit use, although companies were expected to pay for a license. It later competed with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari, and eventually was open sourced in to the Mozilla browser.

• 4.0x
• 4.5x

New Deal Office (1999) 7 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations DOS

Based on GeoWorks, New Deal Office was a graphical operating environment for DOS which later became Breadbox Ensemble. New Deal adds a Windows-95 like user interface with a task bar and start menu. New Deal Office targeted low-end 386 and 486 computers that were not up to the task of running Windows 95. It was also released in a "WebSuite" edition only includes the internet connectivity and web browsing tools.

• 3.1b
• 3.2a
• 2000

Norton Commander (1986) 139 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

• 5.5x

Ontrack Disk Manager (1987) 17 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.

• 9.x

OS/2 Warp 4 (1996) 153 OS2

OS/2 Warp 4 incorporated a number of new technologies over OS/2 Warp 3, such as Java, OpenGL, OpenDoc, and VoiceType. It also updated the appearance of the Workplace Shell. | 1.x | 2.x | 3.x | 4.x | All |

• OS/2 Warp 4.52

PartitionMagic (1995) 42 Utility DOS

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.

• 3.x
• 4.x

pcANYWHERE (1990) 6 Communications DOS Windows

pcAnywhere is a tool that enables one to remotely control another computer, or to be remotely controlled.

• 8.0 (Win)

PowerBASIC (1991) 16 DOS

PowerBASIC is a continuation of Borland TurboBasic maintained by its original author, Robert S. Zale. It was originally notable as a BASIC compiler, when most BASIC environments were interpreted.

• 3.x

PTS-DOS (1995) 13 DOS

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

• 2000

QEMM (1990) 95 Utility DOS Windows

Quarterdeck QEMM is a DOS Extended Memory Manager for 386+ computer which allows you to make use of memory beyond the 640kb barrier. It can also be used with QRAM, a utility for freeing up the 640k base memory.

• 9.x

Qualitas 386MAX (1992) 32 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.

• 8.x

Quattro Pro (1987) 35 Spreadsheet DOS

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.

• 5.6 (DOS)

RAR (1999) 5 Archive DOS

A console utility to extract and create RAR files.

• 2.50

Search & Rescue (1998) 0 Utility DOS

PowerQuest Search & Rescue is an advanced file recovery tool. It operates as a set of bootable floppy disks that can scan a FAT or FAT32 hard drive, piecing together files even when partitions or file systems are damaged.

• 1.0

Sound Blaster Drivers (1990) 63 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 AWE64

SpinRite (1988) 26 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.

• 5.0

System Commander (1996) 13 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.

• 3.x
• Deluxe 4.00
• 2000 (5.x)

Terminate (1997) 3 Communications DOS

Terminate was a shareware modem terminal and host program for MS-DOS and compatible operating systems.

• 5.0

Virtual PC (1996) 47 Virtualization Windows OS2 MacOS

Virtual PC started off originally as an x86 emulator for PowerPC Macintosh to run MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. Connectix, the company that made it, was purchased by Microsoft. Virtual PC was then retooled into a virtualization tool for x86 systems. Microsoft discontinued Virtual PC in favor of a server-oriented virtualization product called Hyper-V.

• 4.x

Watcom C/C++ (1989) 27 DOS Windows

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.

• 11.0

WordPerfect (1983) 149 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.

• 7.x (Unix)

WordPerfect Library (1998) 1 Utility Editor PIM DOS

WordPerfect Library, introduced in 1986 and later renamed WordPerfect Office (not to be confused with Corel's Windows office suite of the same name), was a package of DOS network and stand-alone utility software for use with WordPerfect. The package included a DOS menu shell and file manager, whose macros allowed text to be moved from one program to another (for example, from WordPerfect to Calendar, and vice versa), a do-all editor, apparently that of Wordperfect 3.0, which could edit binary files as well as WordPerfect or Shell macros, calendar, and a general purpose flat file database program that could be used as the data file for a merge in WordPerfect and as a contact manager.

• 2.0