Microsoft Works (1986) 111 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)

dBASE (1983) 98 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) 53 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

Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 34 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)

PFS First Choice (1987) 31 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Database DOS

PFS First Choice is a simple, easy to use integrated office suite marketed towards new users. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet, graphics, database, and telecommunications. First Choice is similar to, but not as feature rich as, the standalone PFS office products. It competed against AlphaWorks/LotusWorks and Microsoft Works.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x

BodyWorks (1991) 30 Reference DOS Windows

BodyWorks, from Software Marketing Corp, is an interactive computerized human anatomy reference for DOS and Windows. It is an informal educational/multimedia product targeted at home users.

• 2.0
• 3.0

LapLink (1987) 26 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

Bookshelf (1987) 25 Reference DOS

Microsoft Bookshelf is a CD-ROM based multimedia reference tool from Microsoft, including a dictionary, thesaurus, quotations, atlas, and other types of references. Some versions were included and integrated with Microsoft Office, albeit sometimes stripped down.

• 87
• 91

Procomm Plus (1985) 18 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

Freelance Graphics (1985) 12 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)

WordPerfect Presentations (1991) 9 Presentations DOS

WordPerfect Presentations is WordPerfect Corp's offering to the desktop presentation market. It is an enhancement to and replacement for DrawPerfect. In addition to DrawPerfect's charting, it adds slide printing, on-screen slide shows, templates, a text outliner, a slide sorter, and supports multimedia audio. At release, it competed against PowerPoint, Aldus Persuasion, Harvard Graphics, and Lotus Freelance Graphics. Notably, it did all this while the initial release was for DOS. A version for Microsoft Windows was later released.

• 2.0

Mathcad (1989) 9 Mathematics DOS

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.

• 2.5

New Deal Office (1999) 7 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations DOS

Based on GeoWorks, New Deal Office was a graphical operating environment for DOS which later became Breadbox Ensemble. New Deal adds a Windows-95 like user interface with a task bar and start menu. New Deal Office targeted low-end 386 and 486 computers that were not up to the task of running Windows 95. It was also released in a "WebSuite" edition only includes the internet connectivity and web browsing tools.

• 3.1b
• 3.2a
• 2000

FoxBASE (1987) 7 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

Framework (1984) 6 Word Processor Spreadsheet Graphics Communications Database DOS

Originally created by Forefront Corporation for Ashton-Tate and first released in 1984, Framework was an early integrated office suite for DOS. It has a built in word processor, spreadsheet, database, outliner, graphing, and telecommunications.

• 1.0
• Premier 1.x
• II
• III
• XE
• IV

Exploring The IBM Personal Computer (1983) 5 Education DOS

Exploring The IBM Personal Computer is a tutorial program included with IBM Personal Computers designed to help new users learn how to use their computer. There were different versions for the IBM PC, PCjr, XT and AT computers.

• 1.00
• PCJr 1.00
• AT 1.00
• AT 2.0
• XT 2.00

FastLynx (1990) 5 Communications DOS

FastLynx, originally called FastWire, is a high-speed file transfer program that operates on two computers connected together via a serial nullmodem or special parallel port cable. It competed against similar file transfer programs such as LapLink.

• 1.x
• 2.x

Corel Presentations (1995) 4 Presentations DOS

Corel Presentations (which is often referred to simply as Presentations) is a presentation program akin to Microsoft PowerPoint and OpenOffice.org Impress.

• 2.x

QuickLink (1990) 4 Communications DOS Windows

Quick Link Fax, from Smith Micro Software, is a program for receiving and sending Faxes under DOS and Windows 3.1 with a compatible FAXModem. It competed against Delrina WinFax. On the Macintosh, Smith Micro provided MacComCenter.

• II 1.0
• II 2.0
• II 3.2 (Win)

Lotus Symphony (1984) 3 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Graphics Communications Database DOS

Lotus Symphony is a an integrated software program that combines five tools: spreadsheet - word processing, graphics, database management, and data communications - in one package. The spreadsheet has similar functionality to Lotus 1-2-3, however it uses a different software "engine". These releases are of the original suite produced by Lotus. For the unrelated suite produced by IBM under the same name, see "IBM Lotus Symphony".

• 1.00
• 2.00
• 3.00

Q&A (1988) 3 Database DOS

Symantec Q&A is a low end flat-file database manager that includes a word processor and a natural language query and reporting interface. While the package is forms-based like Professional File, it is more sophisticated and powerful. Symantec also sold a companion word processor called Q&A Write.

• 3.x

Reflection (1992) 3 Communications DOS

Reflection is a terminal emulator suite that connects PCs to mainframes, AS/400 and Unix hosts. Each emulator in the suite is designated by number: Reflection 1 is an HP terminal emulator, Reflection 2 is a VT320 terminal emulator, Reflection 4 is a VT340 emulator, and there are also terminal emulators for IBM 3270 and AS/400.

• 4.x (DOS)

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

Derive (1994) 3 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 Mail (1991) 2 Communications DOS

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

• 2.1
• 3.0
• 3.2