Ventura Publisher (1986) 3 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) 13 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) 0 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) 0 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

RightWriter (1987) 0 Utility MacOS

RightWriter is a grammar / structure checking utility. You can feed it a document, and it will produce a marked up copy listing high level critiques such as readability, delivery strength, and jargon. It competed with Grammatik, but RightWriter generally produced superior results.

• 3.x (Mac)

PowerPoint (1987) 13 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) 136 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) 6 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

Copy II Mac (1987) 1 Utility MacOS

Copy II Mac is a tool for copying copy protected disks on the Apple Macintosh computer. It also includes MacTools, an enhanced file manager with disk editing and testing abilities.

• 7.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) 2 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

Grammatik (1988) 0 Utility MacOS

Grammatik is a standalone grammar checker, and was possibly the first grammar checker for personal computers. Later versions were built in to Word Perfect. It competed against RightWriter.

• Mac 2.0

Publish-IT (1988) 6 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) 3 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) 3 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

MacTools (1988) 2 Utility MacOS

Central Point MacTools is a set of disk utilities similar to Central Point PC Tools for the Apple Macintosh. It includes a file system repair tool, disk optimizer, anti virus, hex editor, and more. MacTools 4.0 Pro was the final version after Central Point was bought out by Symantec.

• PC Tools Deluxe (Mac)
• 1.x
• 2.0
• 3.0

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

Mathcad (1989) 18 Mathematics MacOS

Mathcad is an easy to use graphical calculation program targeted at engineering professionals. It supports a wide variety of mathematical functions. There were versions for DOS, Macintosh, and Windows.

• 2.0

Cricket Graph (1989) 0 Presentations Graphics Windows MacOS

Cricket Graph, from Cricket Software and later Computer Associates, was a best selling presentation graphics program, and a companion product to CA-Cricket Presents (formerly Xerox Presents). This program can create a variety of graphs, such as line, bar and pie charts. CA-Cricket Presents can then import the graphs in to presentations.

• 1.x (Mac)

Norton Anti-Virus (1990) 0 Utility MacOS

Originally written by Symantec and sold as Symantec Antivrus for Macintosh, it became part of the "Norton" branded products sold by Symantec after they acquired Peter Norton Computing. Norton Anti-Virus became a popular product on DOS, Windows, and Macintosh (SAM was renamed to NAV in 1998) and battled the then-new threat of malicious software. In 2015, Symantec unified their security product lineup under the single "Norton Security" product. It was also bundled with Norton SystemWorks.

• 6.x
• 7.x
• 8.x
• 9.x

FrameMaker (1990) 2 Publishing Unix MacOS Other Windows

FrameMaker, originally from Frame Technology Corporation and later Adobe, is a professional document system for creating large, complex documents with highly structured layout. It was often accompanied by FrameReader.

• 2.x
• 4.x

DiskDoubler (1990) 7 Utility Archive MacOS

DiskDoubler is an automated file compression program for the Apple Macintosh. It does not compress the entire drive, but rather specified files. It automatically compresses and recompresses files as you use them.

• 3.x

Microsoft Office (1991) 402 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
• 4.3
• 97/98
• 2001 (Mac)