CheckIt (1988) 24 Utility DOS

CheckIt, from TouchStone Software Corporation, is a diagnostic tool for generic PC/XT/AT compatible computers. It can perform tests on RAM, hard disks, video cards, floppy disks, motherboard resources, and I/O devices. It has an easy to use menu interface but can also run tests non-interactively. It was followed up by the product WINCheckit.

• 1.x
• 2.1
• 3.0
• LAN 2.x
• Pro 1.x

ChiWriter (1990) 7 Word Processor Mathematics DOS

ChiWriter is a WYSIWYG scientific text editor for DOS. Created by Cay Horstmann in 1986, it was one of the first that could write mathematical formulas on common PC computers.

• 4.00
• 4.2

Freelance Graphics (1985) 2 Presentations Graphics DOS

GCI/Lotus/IBM Freelance Graphics is a vector based presentation and graphing package developed for DOS, OS/2, and Windows. It was intended for use alongside Lotus 1-2-3. Later versions were part of SmartSuite. Before it was acquired by Lotus it was known Freelance, from Graphic Communications.

• 1.0 (DOS)
• 2.0 (DOS)
• 4.0 (DOS)

Perceive Personal (1993) 0 Publishing DOS

This is an early OCR program for DOS based computers.

• 1.1 for DOS

Ventura Publisher (1986) 3 Publishing DOS

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.

• 1.0
• 1.1
• 2.0
• 3.0 for DOS-GEM

PC-File (1984) 0 Database DOS

PC-File is a simple flat file database management program for DOS. PC-File, along with PC-Write, and PC-Talk were the first popular products sold under the "Shareware" concept.

• III 2.0
• III 4.0
• Plus
• 5.x
• 6.x
• 7.x

3D FloorPlan Designer (1993) 0 Graphics DOS

3D FloorPlan is a 3-dimensional architectural and space planning program for small business professionals and home users. The user may design a home addition or remodel in 2D and FloorPlan automatically converts the drawing into 3D. The user can then walk through the 3D model in real time.

• 2.0

Autodesk Deck (1993) 1 Graphics DOS

Autodesk Deck is a stripped down CAD program that contains pre-defined objects specifically for designing deck layouts.

• 2.0

Conner Backup Basics (1993) 1 Utility DOS

Conner Backup Basics is a dumbed down version of Conner Backup Exec that only works with their tape drives. This software will not run at all without the appropriate tape drive attached.

• 1.1 (DOS)

Norton Backup (1990) 4 Utility DOS

Norton Backup, from Symantec, is a fast and easy to use backup tool for MS-DOS. The original 1.0 suffered from reliability problems, but these were fixed in 1.1. It does not include a backup scheduler. It competed against backup utilities such as PC Tools Deluxe PC Backup, Taketwo Manager, Gazelle Systems Back-It, Backup Pro, FastBack Plus, and Keep Track Plus.

• 1.x
• 2.x

Memory Commander (1992) 3 Utility DOS

Memory Commander, from V Communications, Inc, is a memory manager similar to QEMM or 386MAX, but can expand the DOS base memory beyond 640K with some kinds of applications.

• 3.x
• 4.x

Expert Perfect Forms (1990) 1 Database DOS

Expert Software's Perfect Forms is a budget form creation and data entry tool. It comes with a large number of ready-to-use forms for a variety of business needs. You can customize existing forms, or create new ones.

• 1.0
• 3.00

Trend Micro Chip Away (1993) 0 Utility DOS

Released in the early 90s by the Japanese company Trend Micro Devices, Inc (later just Trend Micro), Chip Away Viruses is a DOS based virus scanner that is intended to run from a hardware product built in to a PC motherboard before the system boots. It includes a custom embeddable DOS (called X-DOS), but it can be run from regular DOS. Trend Micro also produced the products PC Rx (A regular software virus scanner), and PC-cillin (a hardware/software combo that keeps critical boot information in a special device). Users sometimes misinterpreted the name "ChipAway Virus" as being a virus itself.

• 2.x

Change Directory Plus (1993) 1 Utility DOS

Change Directory Plus is a small commercial utility distributed with Softdisk publishing's Big Blue Disk magazine. It indexes all folders on your hard drive, and permits you to change in to a deep subdirectory simply by specifying the final subdirectories name.

• 1.x

Forms Maker and Filler (1991) 1 Database DOS

Forms Maker and Filler is a budget program for making computerized forms. It has two components, a Designer used to create forms, and a Filler used to fill out the contents of the forms.

• 1.x

DataPerfect (1993) 3 Word Processor Database DOS

DataPerfect, originally written by Lew Bastian, published through WordPerfect Corp, and later through Novell, was a fast, memory efficient, but capable relational database for DOS. WordPerfect Corp sold the product alongside their other DOS based office products, such as WordPerfect and PlanPerfect. In 1995 Novel released DataPerfect as freeware and development was continued by its original author until about 2008.

• 2.x

Back-It (1986) 1 Utility DOS

Back-It, from Gazelle Systems, is a fast and compact hard disk backup utility. It was sometimes part of OEM system bundles. It was kind of low-end, and changed backup formats between releases but otherwise did what it was supposed to do.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x

RIPaint (1993) 5 Graphics DOS

RIPaint is a tool for creating Remote Imaging Protocol vector graphics to be displayed over BBS/telnet using terminal emulators such as RIPTerm. quickly by the rise of the World Wide Web.

• 1.x

Pizazz Plus (1993) 0 Graphics DOS

Pizazz Plus is a commercial screen shot utility for MS-DOS, with support for Windows. It features built in image enhancement, card-specific support for a large number of video cards, built-in printing with support for a huge number of printers, and converter export tools for many file formats.

• 4.0

Vertisoft SpaceManager (1993) 1 Graphics DOS Windows

SpaceManager, from Vertisoft, the authors of DoubleDisk which became Microsoft DoubleSpace, is a utility that adds more features to DoubleSpace. It adds access to additional compression methods to get better compression at the expense of CPU speed, can bypass compression for files that do not compress well, automatically schedule a drive recompression, automatically mounts compressed floppy disks, and shows drive usage details and compression statistics.

• 1.5x

DECTalk PC (1993) 1 Utility DOS

DECTalk was a text to speech system used in automated telephone, radio, and TV systems. It was notably used as an artificial voice by Stephen Hawking. Most DECTalk devices were standalone serial devices, however DEC did produce an ISA expansion card for the IBM PC that contained this functionality. This software is required to operate these ISA cards.

• 4.x

XtraDrive (1993) 0 Utility DOS

XtraDrive is a hard drive compression program that competed against programs like Stacker and SuperStor. XtraDrive was slightly slower, but was priced lower. before DOS and intercepts disk writes at the BIOS level. This allows many disk utilities to work that otherwise would not. Unlike the other drive compression programs at the time, XtraDrive features easy de-installation.

• 3.0

SPSS/PC (1993) 0 Mathematics DOS

SPSS/PC+ is high end statistics package that supports organizing, analyzing, and graphing data.

• 5.x

myHouse (1993) 0 Graphics DOS

myHouse is a simplistic easy to use CAD program that is specifically geared towards generating home layouts. It uses 2-D editing and features the ability to render the final product in 3-D.

• 1.x

Computer Shopper FastFiler (1993) 1 Utility DOS

FastFiler, from Ziff-Davis Publishing Company and Strange Software LTD, is a rudimentary easy to use file manager shell. It was sold alongside Computer Shopper magazines. While it offers a friendlier interface than the DOS command prompt, it has fewer features and abilities than competing file managers.

• 1.x