Microsoft Office (1991) 342 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Publishing PIM Database Windows MacOS

Microsoft Office is a bundle of Microsoft's productivity application. This includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and later Mail, Office Manager, and Outlook. The "1.x" versions of Microsoft Office were simply a marketing bundle of the standalone products sold together with no other packaging changes. Even though these were distinct applications, rather than one single monolithic program, they shared a similar user interface, integrated well together and shared the ability to embed documents from one application in the documents of another.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.0
• 4.2
• 4.3
• 95
• 97/98
• 2000
• 2001 (Mac)
• XP (2002 Beta)

Microsoft Plus! (1995) 112 Utility Novelty Windows

Microsoft Plus! was an add-on package to Windows that added desktop themes, screen savers, sound effects, power-toys, and other assorted goodies for the home user. Plus! 95 also included Internet Explorer 1.0, which was not included in all Windows 95 distributions.

• 95
• 98

Lotus SmartSuite (1992) 59 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations PIM Database Windows OS2

IBM/Lotus SmartSuite is an office suite from Lotus software for Windows and OS/2. SmartSuite includes SmartCenter, 1-2-3, Word Pro, Freelance Graphics, Approach, Organizer, and ScreenCam.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• For OS/2
• 4.0
• 96
• 97
• 9.0
• 9.1
• For OS2 Warp 4
• 9.5
• 9.6
• 9.7
• 9.8

Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 39 Graphics Publishing Novelty DOS Windows

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)
• 1.0
• 2.0
• 3.0
• 4.0
• 6.0
• 8.0

After Dark (1989) 36 Novelty MacOS Windows 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 Macintosh
• Magic ScreenSaver
• 1.0 for Windows
• 2.x
• 1.0 for DOS
• 3.x
• 4.x
• Tenth Anniversary
• 9

CircuitMaker (1998) 35 Engineering Windows

CircuitMaker, from MicroCode Engineering, is an easy-to-use schematic design and simulation tool. This product was discontinued in 2000 after being bought out by Altium, and is not related to the current software of a similar name.

• 6.x
• 2000

Autodesk AutoCAD (1984) 18 Graphics Engineering DOS MacOS Unix Windows

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 (Mac)
• r10 (DOS)
• r10 (Unix)
• r11 (DOS)
• r11 (Mac)
• r11 (Win)
• r12 (Mac)

Microsoft Exchange (1996) 12 Chat PIM Server Windows

Exchange is a proprietary e-mail and groupware server software from Microsoft for Windows Server. The first version publicly sold was Exchange Server 4.0. The number 4.0 was used as it was a replacement for Microsoft Mail 3.x. At release, unlike other desktop/lan e-mail solutions it featured client/server communications rather than using file sharing, used a powerful messaging protocol, and stored all message and address book information in a database. It eventually evolved to include scheduling and many other functions. The Exchange Client (later Microsoft Outlook) supported rich text formatting, and the ability to create such things as e-mail forms.

• 4.0
• 5.5
• 2000

Microsoft Scenes (1993) 12 Novelty Windows

Microsoft Scenes is a screen saver that displays a slide show of photographs. It was packaged in several varieties with different themed galleries.

• 1.0
• 2.0

Microsoft BOB (1995) 10 Novelty Windows

Microsoft BOB is a Windows 3.1 graphical shell intended for novice users. It presents your desktop as a series of "rooms" with various selectable objects, and assists you with a friendly animated guide. It features vector based graphics that scale to any size or resolution screen, supports user profiles, and includes rudimentary editor, calendar, address book, and checking programs. It was created as a response to Packard Bell Navigator and is somewhat comparable to Apple At Ease and 3DNA.

• 1.00
• 1.00a

Sidekick (1984) 9 Utility PIM DOS OS2 Windows

Borland Sidekick is a DOS based PIM (Personal Information Manager) and one of the first widely-used TSR (terminate and stay resident) programs. The key feature of Sidekick was that one could use Sidekick's utilities while using most other MS-DOS applications. This was important because MS-DOS had no built-in multi-tasking or task switching capabilities.

• 1.x
• Plus
• 1.0 for OS/2
• 2.0
• 1.0 for Windows
• 2.0 for Windows

Catz (1996) 9 Novelty Windows

Catz, from PF Magic, Inc, is a fun program that places an animated cat on your desktop for you to play with.

• 1.0
• II

Lotus Notes (1993) 9 Communications PIM Windows MacOS

Lotus Notes is a powerful e-mail and collaboration tool. It was heavily used by large corporations. It was sometimes criticized for its complexity and bloat. Notes is a client server tool, and uses the Lotus Domino server (originally just called Lotus Notes server). Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino competed against Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange.

• 3.x
• 5.x

Generic CADD (1987) 8 Engineering DOS

Generic CADD, originally from Generic Software, Inc., was a popular low-cost 2D CAD program targeted at casual drafting users. Initially it competed against AutoCAD, and the budget TurboCAD. The original version offered a number of separately purchasable modules.

• 3.0
• 5.0
• 6.0

3DNA (2002) 7 Utility Novelty Windows

3DNA is a 3D virtual environment shell that presents your computer as a series of 3D video-game like rooms. It features objects that you can set to launch applications, web site previews in the form of a "browser bay", and in-program advertising. It was bundled with some video cards. In many ways it is like a 3d-version of Microsoft Bob, and has a resemblance to Packard Bell Navigator.

• 1.0
• 1.1

Gryphon Morph (1993) 7 Graphics Novelty Windows

Morph, from Gryphon Software was the first commercial morphing program for PCs. With this program you specify related points between two images and the software will morph the two images together at different levels. The program can export the results to a movie file.

• 1.00

3D Landscape (1994) 6 Engineering Windows

3D Landscape is a computer aided design program specifically geared towards designing and planning landscapes. It includes the ability to view the design from 3 dimensional angles and includes extensive online documentation on landscape design.

• 1.0

DesignCAD 2D (1988) 5 Graphics Engineering DOS

DesignCAD is a low end, but well featured, drafting program. It was sometime a companion product to DesignCAD 3D.

• 3.x
• 5.x

Ashlar Vellum (1990) 4 Graphics Engineering Windows MacOS

Ashlar Vellum is a CAD package for mechanical engineers and designers, that includes the ability to intelligently predict where the user wants to connect the next object. There were both "2D" and "3D" versions.

• 1.x (Win)
• 2.x (Mac)

Icon Hear-It (1992) 3 Novelty Windows

Icon Hear-It, released in 1992 from Moon Valley Software, is a shell enhancement for Windows 3.0 and 3.1 that adds sound effects to all kinds of desktop and Program Manager actions. It features the ability to change the Program Manager program group icons, animated cursors and icons, and includes a talking calculator, clock, and solitaire game. It includes a PC speaker driver for those without a sound card.

• 1.0

Schedule+ (1990) 3 PIM Windows MacOS

Schedule Plus is a calendar/personal information manager. It is designed to operate using a shared network Microsoft Mail "mailbox" over a LAN.

• 1.x
• 95 (7.0)

Microsoft Greetings (1997) 3 Publishing Novelty Windows

Microsoft Greetings is a greeting card maker for Microsoft Windows 9x/NT. It was made in conjunction with Hallmark.

• Workshop 2.0
• 99 (3.0)

TurboCAD (1993) 3 Graphics Engineering Windows

TurboCAD is a low-cost 2D/3D Computer Aided Design program that competed with AutoCAD and Generic CADD. It was first available for DOS, and later Mac, Windows 3.x, and Windows 9x/NT.

• 1.0
• 3.x

Cadlogic Instinct (1987) 3 Engineering Windows

Instinct is a computer aided design drafting tool designed for Microsoft Windows 1.x. It was designed specifically with ease of use in mind, and was among the few early applications designed for Microsoft Windows 1.

• 1.0

Visual CADD (1994) 3 Engineering Windows

Visual CADD is a greatly enhanced version of Generic CADD designed for Microsoft Windows. It was created by Numera Software Corporation, which consisted of many original Generic CADD programmers, after Generic CADD was acquired and then abandoned by AutoDesk. It never regained its popularity and was eventually acquired by Corel and IMSI before finally landing at TriTools. The original developers also created another Generic CADD offshoot called General CADD Pro.

• 1.x