Adobe Illustrator (1988) 101 Graphics Unix MacOS

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.

• 5.5

CorelDraw! (1989) 72 Graphics Publishing Unix

Corel Draw is a vector based drawing and illustration program. It is primarily a Windows application, but was ported to Mac OS, Mac OS X, Linux, CTOS and OS/2. It competed against Aldus Freehand, Adobe Illustrator, and Micrografx Designer.

• 3.5 (Unix)

Microsoft Works (1986) 68 Word Processor Spreadsheet Communications Database DOS

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 (DOS)
• 2.x (DOS)
• 3.x (DOS)

Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 52 Graphics Publishing Novelty DOS

Instant Artist, later renamed to Print Artist, is a greeting card and sign creation program that uses vectorized graphics. It was created by The Pixellite Group, the original authors of The Print Shop, and published in 1992 by Autodesk. It was later sold by Sierra On-line. It features a high quality set of generic reusable clip art. The clip art uses vector based technology that was also used in BannerMania.

• 1.0 (DOS)

Adobe Acrobat (1993) 43 Publishing Windows Unix MacOS

Adobe Acrobat, first released in 1993, is a tool for creating portable electronic documents. Its documents retain complex formatting when used across differing systems, so that they appear identical when viewed on screen or printed to a printer. Acrobat accomplishes this by encapsulating Adobe's PostSript printer language in to a document file format and offering the ability to embed fonts that are not present on the target system.

• 3.x

dBASE (1983) 39 Database DOS Windows

Ashton-Tate dBase was an early popular database management system for CP/M and MS-DOS. It was regarded as one of the killer applications for CP/M, and achieved good success. At the time of conception Ashton-Tate was a garage based company but quickly grew.

• II v2.x
• III v1.0
• III v1.1
• III Plus v1.0
• III Plus v1.1
• IV v1.0
• IV v1.1
• IV v1.5
• IV v2.0
• 5.x

After Dark (1989) 32 Novelty DOS

After Dark, from Berkeley Systems, Inc, is a set of entertaining screen savers for Mac and Windows. After Dark for Windows started off as "Magic Screen Saver" for Windows 2.x. After Dark was most famous for its "Flying Toasters" screen saver. Afterdark was very popular on both the early Macintosh computers and Windows 3.0, as neither included any kind of screen saver or screen blanker that would help prevent screen burn-in.

• 1.0 for DOS

The Print Shop (1984) 25 Publishing DOS

The Print Shop is a home oriented publisher capable of creating calendars, banners, greeting cards and other printable goods. It started off on the Apple II and Commodore 64 where it became popular for its simplicity and ease of use. From day one, it featured interactive editing, on-screen artwork/layout selection, print previewing, and a library of customizable clipart.

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

Autodesk AutoCAD (1984) 20 Graphics Engineering DOS Unix

AutoCAD, from Autodesk and first released in 1982, is a powerful Computer Aided Design tool. It was, and still is, often considered the standard for CAD tools. Primarily for the IBM PC platform, it was ported to x86 machines with higher video resolutions such as the Zenith Z-100 and NEC APC. Intermittently, versions for the Macintosh appeared. Later versions use a dongle copy protection.

• 1.x (DOS)
• 2.x (DOS)
• r10 (DOS)
• r10 (Unix)
• r11 (DOS)

pcANYWHERE (1990) 15 Communications DOS Windows

pcAnywhere is a tool that enables one to remotely control another computer, or to be remotely controlled.

• 2.x (DOS)
• 4.0 (DOS)
• 4.5 (DOS)
• 5.0 (DOS)
• 2.0 (Win)
• 8.0 (Win)

Microsoft Mail (1991) 12 Communications DOS

There were two distinct "Microsoft Mail" products. One for AppleTalk Networks, and one for PC Networks.

• 2.1
• 3.0
• 3.2

AutoSketch (1987) 11 Graphics DOS

AutoSketch is a 2D vector program sold by Autodesk. Unlike artistic drawing programs, AutoSketch is specifically geared towards engineering applications. Although not as powerful as AutoCAD, it can work with 2D AutoCAD files. Autodesk also produced AutoCAD LT, a higher end 2-D drawing program. But unlike AutoSketch, AutoCAD LT was based directly on AutoCAD and worked similarly.

• 1.x (DOS)
• 2.x (DOS)
• 3.x (DOS)

KeyCAD Complete (1993) 11 Graphics DOS

KeyCad Complete, from Softkey, is a low-end computer aided design and drawing tool.

• 6.0 (DOS)
• 1.0 for Windows

Borland Reflex (1985) 11 Database DOS

Borland Reflex, first released in 1984 by Analytica and bought by Borland, is a flat file database system with a fully graphical user interface and built in graphing. The Macintosh version of Borland Reflex]was based on the Macintosh database product Interlace from Singular Software.

• 1.x
• 2.0

Oracle Server (1991) 10 Server Database DOS

Oracle Server is an enterprise grade relational database used in many corporations. It was mainly targeted at high end server operating systems, such as IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, HP UX, Digital VMS, Linux, and Microsoft Windows NT. Oracle makes current versions of their software avaialble for download, but older versions usually disappear.

• 6

Mathcad (1989) 9 Mathematics DOS

Mathcad is computer software primarily intended for the verification, validation, documentation and re-use of engineering calculations.

• 2.5

MatLab (1986) 9 Mathematics DOS

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.

• 1.x (DOS)
• 3.5 (DOS)

FoxBASE (1987) 9 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

Cakewalk (1993) 9 Audio DOS

Cakewalk is a MIDI music authoring and editing tool. The earlier versions are considered among the best MIDI tools that ever existed. Microsoft Windows. limited music notation and a built-in scripting language called CAL (Cakewalk Application Language). limited functionality OEM-bundled "Express" editions.

• 5.0 (DOS)

Derive (1994) 9 Mathematics DOS

Derive was a computer algebra and graphing system, developed as a successor to muMATH by Soft Warehouse, Inc. in Honolulu, Hawaii, now owned by Texas Instruments. Derive was implemented in muLISP, also by Soft Warehouse. The first release was in 1988 for DOS. It was discontinued on June 29, 2007 in favor of the TI-Nspire CAS. The last and final version is Derive 6.1 for Windows.

• 2.x
• 3.x

Microsoft Rbase (1985) 9 Database DOS

Microsoft Rbase is a version of Microrim R:Base 5000, a DOS based relational database program, licensed by Microsoft and distributed in the European markets.

• 1.x

QuarkXPress (1986) 8 Publishing DOS

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.

• 3.x

PC Paintbrush (1984) 8 Graphics DOS

ZSoft PC Paintbrush is a bitmap drawing program visually similar to MacPaint. The earlier DOS versions were often bundled with Microsoft and Microsoft compatible mice, and were notable for supporting a huge variety of video adapters. It competed against Mouse Systems PC Paint (not related despite the similar name). ZSoft PC Paintbrush eventually became Microsoft Paintbrush included in Windows 3.x. For Microsoft's rebranded version see Microsoft Mouse and Microsoft Paintbrush

• 2.x (DOS)
• 3.x (DOS)
• Plus 1.x (DOS)
• IV (DOS)

Procomm Plus (1985) 7 Communications DOS

ProComm, from Datastorm technologies, was a powerful and very popular telecommunications program for DOS and Windows. TERMULATOR, written to fill the gap left by shareware PC-Talk when its author died. protocols for uploading and downloading, and automatic redial. The commercial "ProComm Plus" includes a scripting language, more terminal types, additional file transfer protocols, context sensitive help, support for 8 COM ports, and a professionally written manual (telecommunications)](/product/microsoft_access_business_information_access_program), Crosstalk, Relay Gold, and PFS Access. Later, it competed with QModem and Telemate.

• 1.1 (shareware)
• 1.1
• 2.x (Shareware)
• 2.x

LapLink (1987) 7 Communications DOS

LapLink, from Traveling Software Inc., enables users to easily and quickly move files between two DOS computers using only a serial null-modem cable or a special parallel port connector. No other hardware is needed. Laplink was extremely popular.during the late 80s and early 90s. It was infinitely easier to set up any two arbitrary PCs (often portables or laptops) with LapLink than other methods, such as DOS based networking. MS-DOS 6 bundled a similar set of file transfer tools called INTERLNK and INTERSVR.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x