VersaCAD (1988) 0 Graphics Engineering DOS

First released in 1983 by T & W Systems Inc (later Versacad Corporation) and based on their earlier T-Square product, VersaCAD is a sophisticated professional object design and drawing tool for the IBM PC. It competed heavily against AutoCAD. A very in-depth history of VersaCAD can be found on Cadhistory (PDF Link)

• 5.3

Publisher's TypeFoundry (1988) 0 Graphics Publishing Windows

Publisher's TypeFoundry is a set of tools for creating and editing fonts. It includes an Outline Editor for use with vectored fonts, and a Bitmap Editor for use with bit-mapped fonts. It includes a copy of ZSoft PC Paintbrush for Windows so that fonts may be imported to or exported from a variety of sources. Its import/export tools can translate between HP LaserJet, GEM/Ventura Publisher, Windows/PageMaker, and PostScript fonts.

• 1.10

Applause (1988) 2 Presentations Graphics DOS

Originally called Draw Applause, Applause is a slide making, charting, and presentation program for DOS from Ashton-Tate. It also served as a client front end to Ashton Tate's Graphics Service, through which one could purchase high-quality prints. Applause II beefs up the standalone desktop presentation and graphing abilities.

• 1.0
• II

Show Partner (1988) 0 Presentations Graphics DOS

Show Partner is a powerful desktop presentation graphics tool for MS-DOS. With it, you can create or edit graphics, capture screen shots, and assemble them in to an automated redistributable slide show. It supports animations, scripting, and numerous transition effects. It includes screen capture tools for DOS and Windows 1.x/2.x. Show Partner is designed to show presentations directly on your computer screen, rather than printouts or slides. CGA. However, this version supports IBM EGA and VGA. does not include automated graphing capabilities like Harvard Graphics or PowerPoint. Microsoft Mouse 6.00 driver software.

• 3.x

DesignCAD 2D (1988) 0 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

Spinnaker Splash (1988) 0 Graphics DOS

Splash is a VGA-centric paint program created by Spinnaker Software in 1988. Considering that VGA was only introduced in 1987 in conjunction with the IBM PS2 line, this is a pretty early entry in the VGA-compatible paint program market. pixel-level editing, an extensive internal help system, and can export images to TIFF and PC Paintbrush compatible files.

• 1988

Zenographics Pixie (1988) 0 Presentations Graphics Windows

Zenographics Pixie is a simplified, easy to use business presentation and graphing program. It is designed to work with Microsoft Windows 2.x. It was designed to interoperate with their high end Zenographics Mirage graphics software. It can export to Mirage, CGM, and Windows metafiles, and provide output to film recorders.

• 1.x

Diskette Manager (1988) 0 Utility DOS

Diskette Manager, from BLOC publishing, previously from Lassen Software, is a software tool for the IBM PC and Tandy that inventories the contents of your floppy disks in to a database. It enables you to quickly and easily search for files or print disk labels.

• 3

Flu-Shot Plus (1988) 0 Utility DOS

Flu-Shot Plus (usually written Flu-Shot+) is a tiny tool that prevents unwanted reading and writing to boot sectors and specified files on a hard disk or floppy disk. The package flaunts its ability to block virus spreading, but despite this, it is not a virus scanner, and can not detect or remove viruses.

• 1x

Quarterdeck Manifest (1988) 1 Utility DOS

Manifest is an easy to use diagnostic program that provides incredibly detailed information about DOS resource usage, loaded programs, IO devices, and memory usage including EMS, XMS, and UMB memory. It was available as a standalone program and bundled with QEMM and Deskview. Tools like this were essential for resolving compatibility problems between poorly behaved DOS programs and highly customized environments, especially in task switched or multitasking environments.

• 1.x

Lotus Magellan (1989) 0 Utility Document DOS

Magellan was a desktop file viewer and search tool. It indexes all files on your hard drive, and you can search for related information across file formats.

• 1.0
• 2.0

hDC Windows Express (1989) 0 Utility Windows

hDC Windows Express is a "Complete Menu System" shell for Microsoft Windows. The earliest version went under the name"hDC ClickStart", and was for Windows 1.x (Wanted!).

• 2.x
• 3.0

Q-DOS (1989) 3 Utility DOS

Gazelle Systems Q-DOS is a text mode based file manager for DOS. Q-DOS is a simplified file manager that presents all DOS functions visibly. It competed against many other file managers including Norton Commander and Xtree

• 2.x
• 3.x

Powerbase (1989) 0 Utility DOS

Powerbase is a set of utilities distributed by PC World

• Vol II

Easy Access Menu System (1989) 0 Utility DOS

Easy Access Menu system, from TengWare, is a customizable menuing system for DOS that features a built in calendar. It is shareware, but there are few archived versions of it out there.

• 5.x

hDC Windows Manager (1989) 2 Utility DOS

hDC Windows Manager is a set of small desktop utilities that enhance the way the Windows 2 GUI works. It includes an alarm clock, auto save automator, a screen saver, font viewer, memory usage viewer, automatic window cascading/tiling, it can set a mono bitmap as a desktop background, and it can store "sets" of applications to open all at once. menu shell, and hDC Color, a tool that lets Windows 2 VGA use all 16 colors instead of just 8.

• 1.0

Easy Working DOS Manager (1989) 0 Utility DOS

Spinnaker Easy Working DOS Manager is a menu system and file manager for DOS. It was bundled with a number of computer systems including Packard Bell. use of a mouse. It features a customizable application menu, primitive file management, and menu options for the disk utilities commonly included with DOS. It includes built in help, and a tutorial.

• 1.5

Software Bridge (1989) 0 Utility DOS

Software Bridge is a set of executable word processor file converters. It can convert between a large number of word processors while preserving formatting.

• 3.x

QAPlus (1989) 0 Utility DOS Windows

QAPlus is an extensive set of tools to test the functionality of a PC, measure performance, and optimize the configuration. It can test motherboard resources, RAM, video cards, I/O ports, and floppy drives. Later versions supported Microsoft Windows. It competed with tools like Checkit and AMI Diagnostics.

• 3.x
• 6.x

Norton Anti-Virus (1990) 0 Utility DOS Windows 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.

• 1.0
• 1.5
• 2.0
• Michelangelo Edition
• 2.0 (Win)
• 6.x
• 7.x
• 8.x
• 9.x

Paint Shop Pro (1990) 39 Graphics Windows

JASC Paint Shop Pro is a simple and easy to use bit-mapped graphics editor. It supports a wide variety of file formats, and photo manipulation functions that were comparable to PhotoShop. It has good support for editing 256 color palletized images that made it ideal for editing web graphics. It was first released in 1990 for Windows 3.0 as just "Paint Shop", and early versions gained popularity through the distribution of shareware releases. It lost popularity in 2003 when 8.0 was introduced with a redesigned UI and in 2004, JASC was acquired by Corel.

• 1.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x
• 7.x

Micrografx Picture Publisher (1990) 2 Graphics Publishing Windows

Formerly Astral Picture Publisher, Micrografx Picture Publisher is a bitmapped image editor for Windows that offered powerful and feature rich 24-bit color image editing on the Microsoft Windows platform prior to Photoshop for Windows. Picture Publisher was briefly considered the leading image editor on the Microsoft Windows platform until Adobe made Photoshop available for Windows.

• 2.x
• 3.1
• 4.0
• 5.0
• LE
• 6.0

hDC FirstApps (1990) 0 Utility Windows

hDC FirstApps is a collection of 10 simple "MicroApps". FirstApps includes Alarm Clock, Art Gallery, Auto Save, Character Set, Desktop, Font Viewer, Memory Viewer, Rocks, System Enhancer, and Work Sets. It is essentially a Windows 3 version of the Windows 2-based hDC Windows Manager.

• 1.0

PFS Preface (1990) 0 Utility DOS

PFS Preface is a menu system and file manager for DOS that uses an interface style similar to other PFS products.

• 1.00

Ashlar Vellum (1990) 0 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)