SmartSketch (1994) 1 Graphics Publishing Windows

SmartSketch 1.0 is an easy to use vector based drawing targeted at business users. Although there were many other such drawing programs, it boasted simplicity and a large variety of clipart. It was originally intended for GO Corporation's PinPoint pen computing device, but when that was discontinued, SmartSketch was ported to Windows and Macintosh instead.

• 1.0

Softkey/WordStar PC Paintbrush (1993) 1 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

SoftLogic Disk Optimizer (1987) 1 Utility DOS

Disk Optimizer, from SoftLogic Solutions Inc., was a low cost disk defragmentation utility that competed directly against the Norton Utilities. Like other disk optimizers, it re-arranges where files are stored on a hard drive to decrease file access time. It was, however, not as full featured or robust as the Norton Utilities.

• 2.x

SSSI FacetTerm (1993) 0 Utility Unix

FacetTerm is a windowing interface software package for character-based Unix terminals. FacetTerm gives users pull-down menuing and multitasking ability.

• 3.x

Stacker (1991) 6 Utility Archive DOS OS2 Windows

Stacker, from Stack Electronics, was a hard drive compression tool. It was wildly popular until Microsoft virtually eliminated the third party market for this by including their own drive compression tool with MS-DOS 6. and Expandz! Plus.

• 1.0 (DOS)
• 2.0 (DOS)
• 3.x (DOS)
• 1.0 (OS/2)
• 4.0 (DOS)
• 4.0 (OS/2)

Stanford Graphics (1993) 2 Graphics Windows

Stanford Graphics is a combination of Presentation and Analysis software. It contains both common slide making and graphing abilities as well as powerful statistical and technical analysis tools. Specialized technical graphics include contour and color keyed contour plots, polar plots, smith and 3-D Smith chars, and planar and XYZ vector and trajectory plots. Sigma Plot, and BBN Software RS/1 Harvard Graphics.

• 2.x
• 3.0

Stardock Object Desktop (1996) 1 Utility OS2

Object Desktop is a set of utilities for OS/2 power users. It provides a number of visual enhancements, define hotkeys, an improved editor, desktop configuration backup, archive management, system help advisors, and system backup.

• 1.5.x

Statistica (1993) 2 Utility Windows

StatSoft Statistica provides data analysis, data management, statistics, data mining, and data visualization procedures.

• 4.x

Super PC-Kwik (1992) 0 Utility DOS

PC-Kwik is an easy to use hard drive disk caching utility. Compared to some other caching utilities, it is easy to use, it automatically configures itself, and is less likely to cause data corruption.

• 5.x

SuperCalc (1983) 11 Spreadsheet Graphics DOS CPM

SuperCalc was a spreadsheet application published by Sorcim in 1980, and originally bundled (along with WordStar) as part of the CP/M software package included with the Osborne 1 portable computer. It quickly became the de facto standard spreadsheet for CP/M and was ported to MS-DOS in 1982. It competed against spreadsheets such as VisiCalc, Multiplan. and Lotus 1-2-3.

• 1.x
• 2 v1.00
• 3 v1.00
• 3 v2.00
• 3 v2.10
• 4.x
• 5.1

Switcher (1985) 0 Utility MacOS

Switcher is an add on utility program written by Andy Hertzfield and released by Apple that adds the ability to load multiple programs and quickly switch between them - something that MacOS lacked at this point.

• 4.x

System Commander (1996) 20 Utility DOS

System commander, from V Communications, Inc, was a commercial boot manager for PCs. It offered a graphical menu and the ability to hide other partitions from the selected OS. It supported a variety of OSes including DOS, Windows 9x, Windows NT/2000, Linux, OS/2, and various Unixes.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• Deluxe 4.00
• 2000 (5.x)

Talking Icons (1994) 0 Novelty Windows

Talking Icons 2.0 is a utility from Aristo-Soft for Windows 3.1 that adds silly sounds and animated icons to the Windows environment. It also features a tool (Windows FX) that changes the windows border with multiple themes, additional screen savers, wallpaper, additional mouse cursors, an icon editor, and "Talk" ready versions of Minesweeper, Solitaire, and Clock.

• 2.0

The All-Star Utilities Pac (1992) 0 Utility Other Windows

The All-Star Utilities Pac is a set of small windows-based productivity utilities. It was a freebie given away by PC Magazine.

• 1.0

The Print Shop Companion (1984) 6 Graphics Publishing DOS

As the name suggests, the Print Shop Companion is a companion product to The Print Shop. It contains extra miscellaneous functionality such as graphics editors and envelope printing.

• For IBM PC (DOS)
• The NEW PSC (DOS)
• Deluxe

The Program Director (1989) 0 Utility DOS

The Program Director is a tiny little customizable menuing program. It was sold commercially as budget software.

• 1989

Toolworks Backup Pro (1990) 0 Utility DOS

Backup Pro, from The Software Toolworks, is an easy to use backup program for MS-DOS. It features drop down menus and mouse support. It was sometimes bundled with OEM computers, and was sold for very low cost compared to others.

• 1.x

ToyBox Menu Manager / Magic Desk (1992) 3 Utility DOS

ToyBox II, later renamed to Magic Desk, is a simplified graphical menu system that lets you launch your DOS applications from a selection of tiled iconic buttons. Supports nested hierarchies, includes an icon editor, and a number of common icons.

• 2.x
• 3.x (Magic Desk)

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

TurboCAD (1993) 2 Graphics Engineering Windows

TurboCAD is a low-cost 2D/3D Computer Aided Design program that competed with AutoCAD and Generic CADD. It was first available for DOS, and later Mac, Windows 3.x, and Windows 9x/NT.

• 1.0
• 3.x

Type Faces (1983) 0 Utility DOS

Type Faces is a program that can print word processing documents using a number of fancy fonts. The fonts are rendered graphically so you are not dependent on the fonts included with your printer. At the smaller sizes, the fonts are letter quality. Type Faces supports formatting codes that you can insert in to your documents, such as right justify, centering, and underline.

• 1983

Valdocs (1984) 3 Word Processor Spreadsheet Graphics Communications CPM

Valdocs is an office suite that was bundled with the Epson QX-10 (and later QX-16) Z80 based computer. It was "WYSIWYG" in that it could display different fonts of different sizes in the editor on the screen. It could also embed images in the document, and print the document to a graphics printer.

• 2.00
• Plus
• Plus III

VersaCAD (1988) 2 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

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

ViaVoice (1997) 9 Utility Novelty Windows

ViaVoice is a voice recognition program from IBM. It was available in a number of different languages. It was based on the previous VoiceType product Helloooo computer!

• 4.x
• 98