Adobe Illustrator (1988) 88 Graphics MacOS Unix

Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Adobe Systems. It was often sold as a companion product to the bit-map/photo editor Adobe Photoshop. Illustrator was originally released in 1987 for the Apple Macintosh. Early versions were ported to NexT, Silicon Graphics, and Sun Solaris.

• 3.x
• 5.5

Photoshop (1988) 86 Graphics MacOS Windows

Photoshop is a powerful drawing and photo manipulation program for both Mac and Windows. The Macintosh version was released by Adobe in 1990, although a very small number were bundled with Barneyscan slide scanners prior to that. Photoshop contained many advanced features including layered images, advanced color control, and plug-ins. Prior to its release, many of its features were only found in high end dedicated photo pre-processing systems.

• 0.x (beta)
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x

Publish-IT (1988) 2 Publishing MacOS

Publish-It! is a WYSIWYG desktop publishing tool originally created by the UK based GST Software for the TOS/GEM Atari ST system. There were versions for IBM PC/GEM, Apple II, Macintosh (as "Publish-It! Easy"), and later Microsoft Windows. desktop publishing tools, it is not a full word processor, but rather imports text and focuses on high-quality formatting and printing. budget title for home users. SoftKey also released a version branded as Key Publisher

• Easy 2.x

FreeHand (1988) 12 Graphics Publishing MacOS

FreeHand is a vector based drawing program used to create illustrations. It is similar to CorelDraw and Adobe Illustrator. Initially it offered more features and flexibility than illustrator. It was created by Altsys, sold through Aldus, then sold to Macromedia, and then finally was assimilated by Adobe. Later versions repositioned itself as a content creation system for the web through Flash. The final version was Freehand MX (version 11) in 2003.

• 1.0
• 2.0

HyperCard (1988) 8 Other Database MacOS

Hypercard is a graphical card "stack" oriented application and database programming tool for the Apple Macintosh. It features hypertext and hyperlinking of graphics and buttons, and includes an easy to use scripting language called HyperTalk. In many ways, it resembled a web browser, however it had no networking capability.

• 1.x
• 2.x

Personal Newsletter (1988) 0 Publishing Other

Personal Newsletter is a simple desktop publishing tool for the Apple II.

• 2.0

dBASE Mac (1988) 0 Database MacOS

dBase Mac, originally developed by a small company named DigiCorp and then marketed by Ashton-Tate under the dBase name, was a unique and powerful database program for the Macintosh. It featured a sophisticated graphical user interface, a procedural programming language, and the ability to access data from other databases and spreadsheets. 1.00 was released in 1987.

• 1.x

PowerPoint (1987) 25 Presentations MacOS Windows

Microsoft PowerPoint is a graphical presentation tool that is today part of Microsoft Office. Prior to its acquisition by Microsoft, it was known as "Presenter" from Forethought Inc. These are the standalone versions. For the Office bundled versions, see Microsoft Office.

• 1.0
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 97/98

PageMaker (1987) 73 Publishing Windows MacOS

Aldus PageMaker, later Adobe PageMaker, is a desktop publishing program for Mac and Windows. First released in 1985, PageMaker was the first desktop publishing program for the Macintosh. It was followed over a year later with the release of 1.0 for the IBM PC. The PC version was a notable application as it was one of the few rare applications which would run under Windows 1.x. PC PageMaker 1.0 bundled a runtime version of Windows. This enabled MS-DOS users who had not decided to buy Windows to run PageMaker. Aldus skipped version 2.0 on the PC to bring version number in sync with the 3.0 Mac product.

• 5.0

FoxBASE (1987) 21 Database DOS Unix MacOS

FoxBASE, a relational database from Fox Software, started off in 1984 as a clone of dBase II that boasted many speed improvements. FoxBASE+ adds feature parity and compatibility with dBase III Plus. It was later aquired by Microsoft and became FoxPro

• Plus 1.x
• Plus 2.x

MacDraft (1987) 0 Graphics Engineering MacOS

MacDraft is a powerful but easy to use 2D object oriented drawing environment. Supports auto dimensioning, area calculation, rotation, cursor position indicator, and much more while maintaining an appearance similar to Mac Draw. The product was targeted at users that only occasionally used a CAD program.

• 1.x

PrintPower (1987) 0 Publishing DOS Other

PrintPower is a tool for creating greeting cards, signs, banners, and calendars, similar to The Print Shop. It was a rather clunky low-end bottom of the bargain-barrel budget title. The later "Pro" version seems to give it a more Mac-like user interface.

• 1.x

4th Dimension (1987) 1 Database MacOS

4th Dimension is a powerful and feature rich multi-user database for the Apple Macintosh. It features graphical creation of forms, reports, and graphs, a powerful programming language, and databases can be multi-user over AppleTalk networks.

• 1.x

Microsoft Works (1986) 118 Word Processor Spreadsheet Communications Database MacOS Windows

Microsoft Works was an all-in-one scaled-down Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Database geared towards the home user. It was released in variants for early DOS, Windows, and Macintosh. Microsoft Works competed against Lotus Jazz, FrameWork, AlphaWorks/LotusWorks, PFS First Choice, and many others.

• 1.x (Mac)
• 3.x (Mac)
• 4.0

QuarkXPress (1986) 29 Publishing MacOS

QuarkXPress was THE standard publishing software during the 1990s. However it failed to update its product line to newer technologies in a timely manager, charged insane amounts for updates or additional features that should have been built in to the software, and became very abusive to their customers. Later versions required a parallel port/ADB copy protection dongle. They lost most of their market share to Adobe InDesign.

• 1.x
• 2.x

MacDraw (1986) 6 Graphics MacOS

MacDraw, originally from Apple and later Claris, was an early vector based drawing application for MacOS. The original version was released alongside the Macintosh in 1984. It could be used in conjunction with MacWrite. Unlike MacPaint, MacDraw uses shapes and lines to build drawings, where MacPaint is completely bit-mapped. In 1993 the product was renamed to ClarisDraw as a Windows port was added.

• 1.x
• II

AppleWorks (1986) 2 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Graphics Communications Database Other MacOS Mac OS X

AppleWorks is an all-in-one Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Database, Graphics Editor, and Presentations tool. The original product was a text-based product for the Apple II. The Apple Macintosh and Windows versions were forked from ClarisWorks in 1998 by Apple. At the time, Apple was under a lot of pressure to have a direct alternative to Microsoft Office. There were serious concerns that Microsoft might pull Microsoft Office for the Macintosh from development.

• 2.x (Apple II)
• 5.x
• 6.x

Ventura Publisher (1986) 13 Publishing MacOS

Ventura Publisher, originally from Xerox, is a professional desktop publishing program for the GEM graphical environment and later Windows. It has the distinction of being the first popular publishing program for the IBM PC platform. It competed with Aldus PageMaker, which initially was more popular on the Mac platform. There are also versions for Mac and OS/2.

• 3.x for Macintosh

MatLab (1986) 8 Mathematics Windows MacOS

MatLab is a high speed, interactive programming utility for manipulating, calculating, and plotting complicated mathematical equations. It is considered easy to use for those familiar with typical algebra equations.

• 4.x

Ready Set GO (1986) 5 Publishing MacOS

Ready Set GO, from Manhattan Graphics Corporation, is a desktop publishing program for the Apple Macintosh. It competed against Mac Publisher, Scoop, Quark Xpress, and PageMaker.

• 3
• 4.5
• 6.0

Double Helix (1986) 0 Database MacOS

Helix/Double Helix is an easy to use relational database for the Apple Macintosh. It features a visual programming system, and options for multiuser over AppleTalk.

• 1.0

FontWorks (1986) 1 Utility Publishing Other

FontWorks is a utility that prints documents using high quality fonts on a dot-matrix printer. It was commonly sold as a companion product to AppleWorks on the Apple II. It can print sideways, it includes a number of high quality fonts, and includes a font editor.

• 2.x

FullPaint (1986) 3 Graphics MacOS

FullPaint, originally created by Ann Arbor Softworks, is a MacPaint work-alike for the Macintosh that adds many enhancements and improvements over MacPaint. It was acquired by Ashton-Tate as an attempt to enter the Macintosh market.

• 1.0

Omnis (1985) 3 Database MacOS

Omnis, from the European based Blyth Software, is an easy to use multiuser relational database for Windows, MacOS, and OS/2. It was the first database ported to Microsoft Windows, which ran on Windows 1.0x.

• 3.x (Mac)

StatWorks (1985) 1 Mathematics MacOS

StatWorks, from Cricket Software, is a very powerful statistics software package for the Macintosh designed for a wide variety of applications. It enables all who work with numbers to do statistical computations without spending hours learning "high level" languages or going through several stages to compile analysis.

• 1.x