Windows 3.0 / 3.1 (1990) 1089 Windows

Windows 3.x was the first to gain significant development and commercial traction. It combined the 8086, 286, and 386 modes of Windows 2 in to one package. It replaced the MSDOS Executive with a Program Manager and File Manager similar to those in OS/2 1.x. Much of its success was spurred by the availability and success of Microsoft Office. Although Microsoft would have had you believe otherwise, Windows 3.x was the direct foundation for Chicago/Windows 95. | 1.0 | 2.x | 3.x | NT 3.x | 95 | NT 4.0 | 98 | 2000 | ME | All |

• for Workgroups 3.11
• 3.11

Actor (1987) 1 Windows

Actor, released by The Whitewater Group, Inc. and later Genesis Development Systems, is an object oriented programming language and environment similar to Smalltalk. It is a completely Windows-native environment, and was among the early applications written for Windows. Actor 2 ran under Microsoft Windows 2, and Actor 1.0 runs under Windows 1.

• 4.x

OS/2 2.0 (1991) 36 OS2

OS/2 2.0 was a major change over OS/2 1.x. It was the first 32-bit OS/2 and built by IBM free of Microsoft's influence or contribution. It was the first to feature the new Workplace Shell GUI, and the first to be 32-bit. It was followed up by OS/2 Warp 3. | 1.x | 2.x | 3.x | 4.x | All |

• 2.1

ABC Flowcharter (1990) 2 Presentations Publishing Windows

ABC Flowcharter, from Roykore/Micrografx is a flow chart diagramming utility for Windows. It features the ability to link multiple charts together, and easily break procedures in to multiple steps.

• 3.0

Micrografx Designer (1988) 2 Graphics Publishing Windows

Micrografx Designer, originally released as IN-A-VISON for Windows 1.x, is a vector based drawing and design program. It features ease of use, multiple layers, and dimensioning. Micrografx also sold large libraries of clip art. It competed against Corel Draw.

• 4.0

Norton Desktop (1991) 13 Utility Windows

Norton Desktop is a powerful desktop shell and file manager bundled with many additional tools. There are versions for both DOS and Microsoft Windows.

• 2.2 for Windows
• 3.0 for Windows

Autodesk AutoCAD (1984) 21 Graphics Engineering MacOS

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.

• r12 (Mac)

Softkey/WordStar PC Paintbrush (1993) 0 Graphics Windows

Softkey/WordStar's PC Paintbrush is a paint program and photo editor for Windows 3.x. It only somewhat resembles Zsoft PC Paintbrush but is basically re-branded Zsoft PhotoFinish, released after Zsoft was bought out. It was initially sold by WordStar International, and then later SoftKey.

• 1.x

Sound Blaster 16 ASP Drivers (1993) 13 DOS Windows

Drivers for the Sound Blaster 16 ASP series of cards.

• SB16-STD-01 (Revision 6)

FastBack (1986) 0 Utility DOS

Fastback, by Fifth Generation Systems, Inc, is a backup utility for DOS. Its key feature is that it can read and write both a floppy disk and hard disk at the same time by making use of dual-channel DMA. Combined with speedy data compression, it can make a very fast backup.

• Plus 6.x

Aldus Photostyler (1992) 0 Graphics Windows

Aldus PhotoStyler, developed by Ulead and acquired by Aldus, was an easy-to use photo image editor intended to compete with PhotoShop. The product was dropped when Adobe acquired Aldus.

• 2.x

Timeworks DOS Office (1993) 0 Word Processor Spreadsheet Database DOS

Timeworks DOS Office, from Timeworks, Inc., is an office suite consisting of the Timeworks Word Writer PC word processor, the Timeworks SwftCalc spreadsheet, and the Timeworks Data Manager desktop database.

• 1.0

NCSA Mosaic (1993) 13 Web Browser Windows

First released in 1993, NCSA Mosaic was the first really popular web browser. Unlike the original browser, WorldWideWeb on NeXT, Mosaic was available for the Microsoft Windows platform and added features such as inline graphics viewing. It was developed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. NCSA Mosaic was distributed freely for non commercial use, but required a license for commercial business use. It was licensed by a number of third party OEMs, including Microsoft, who used it for the basis of Microsoft Internet Explorer. In 1995, its popularly quickly gave way to Netscape Navigator.

• 1

Microsoft TrueType Font Pack (1992) 11 Windows

The Microsoft font pack was a commercial package of popular Truetype fonts for Microsoft Windows 3.1. Many of these fonts were included with later versions of Windows and Office.

• 2.0

Magic School Bus Human Body (1993) 0 Windows

Join Ms. Frizzle and the gang on a tour of the human body.

• 1.x

Microsoft Diagnostics (1989) 4 DOS

Microsoft Diagnostics is a DOS-based diagnostic troubleshooting tool

• 3.x

Video for Windows (1993) 5 Windows

Video for Windows allowed Windows 3.x users to play back Windows Video (.avi) files.

• 1.x

Borland Pascal (1993) 18 Windows

Borland Pascal is basically a "professional" version of the Turbo Pascal product that was introduced after Turbo Pascal 6. It includes both the DOS IDE and compiler as well as the Windows IDE from Turbo Pascal For Windows. Borland Pascal was succeeded by Borland Delphi

• 7.x

MacWrite (1984) 4 Word Processor MacOS

MacWrite was one of two applications released with the Apple Macintosh in 1984 - the other being MacPaint. These applications defined the Macintosh, and helped define what users expected from GUI applications.

• Pro 1.x

Autodesk Animator Pro (1993) 7 Graphics DOS

First released in 1989, AutoDesk Animator was a DOS-based professional animation tool. It could create full motion animations using VGA 320*200 256 color resolutions. It supports a number of animation techniques, and includes a freely redistributable animation player. It saves animations to the .FLI or "QuickFlick" format. This format was extremely popular during the very early 90s, and was one of the few that could do 256 colors, including pallet manipulation.

• 1.x

FaxWorks (1993) 3 Communications Windows

FaxWorks Pro, from Softnet of Marietta GA, is an efficent and user friendly fax program. It includes OCR with support for Twain scanners, and can exchange data with various Personal Infromation Managers. Many OEMs bundled FaxWorks with their modems. It competed against Delrina Winfax and BitWare.

• 3.x

Expert Draw (1993) 0 Graphics MacOS

Expert draw is an easy to use budget drawing programs for the Macintosh sold through Expert Software. It features a library of editable clipart, and shape based drawing tools.

• 1.x

Microsoft Space Simulator (1993) 1 DOS

Microsoft Space Simulator is a space flight simulator program for MS-DOS. It was one of the first general-purpose space flight simulators and it incorporated concepts from astrodynamics and celestial mechanics.

• 1.0

AmiPro (1991) 14 Word Processor Windows

Ami Pro, also called just Ami initially, was a word processor sold by Samna and later Lotus Software, where it became Lotus Word Pro. Ami was one of the first word processors for Microsoft Windows, beating MS Word by about a year. Other early Windows word processors included NBI Legend and WinText

• 3.x

Microsoft COBOL (1980) 8 DOS Windows

Cobol is a high level language designed for use in business that uses English-like commands. Microsoft got its early start by producing language products such as this one. Their other early language products included Microsoft Fortran, Microsoft Pascal, Microsoft Basic, and Macro Assembler. This product was also licensed to IBM as IBM Cobol Compiler.

• 5.0