Norton Utilities (1983) 60 Utility MacOS Windows

The Norton Utilities is a suite of disk and system utilities designed to enhance system performance and stability. It started off as a set of disk utilities written by Peter Norton, and later was sold by Symantec. It competed against Central Point PC Tools and the Mace Utilities. In 2003, Norton Utilities was merged with Norton SystemWorks, but later split back out.

• 1.0 for Mac
• 2.0 for Mac
• 3.x for Mac
• 1.0 (95) for Win
• 2.0 (95) for Win
• for NT 4.0
• 3.0 for Win
• 4.x for Mac
• 4.0 for Win
• 5.0 for Mac
• 2001 for Win
• 6.0 for Mac

The Print Shop (1984) 13 Publishing MacOS Windows

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.

• 1.x (Mac)
• Deluxe (Win)
• Deluxe 1.x (Mac)
• Deluxe 2.0 (Win)
• Deluxe III
• Premier 5.x (Win)
• Deluxe 6.0 (Win)
• Ensemble III
• 2002 (Mac)

XTree (1985) 22 Utility Windows

XTree is an easy to use text-mode file manager. It pioneered the use of a GUI-like hierarchy tree, and provides many integrated file viewers. It competed against many other file managers including Gazelle Q-DOS and Norton Commander

• Gold for Windows 4.0

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

Norton Commander (1986) 93 Utility Windows

Norton Commander is a MS-DOS based file shell that was widely popular due to it's two column design. You could easily copy and move files between one folder or another, execute DOS commands and more. It competed against many other file managers including Gazelle Q-DOS and Xtree

• 1.x (Win)
• 2.x (Win)

QuarkXPress (1986) 3 Publishing MacOS Windows

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.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 4.0

Ventura Publisher (1986) 2 Publishing MacOS Windows

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.

• 3.x for Macintosh
• 3.0 for Windows
• 4.0 for Windows
• 4.1.x for Windows
• 4.2

Ready Set GO (1986) 0 Publishing MacOS

Ready Set GO, from Manhattan Graphics Corporation, is a desktop publishing program for the Apple Macintosh. It competed against Mac Publisher, Scoop, Quark Xpress, and PageMaker.

• 3
• 4.5
• 6.0

RightWriter (1987) 0 Utility MacOS Windows

RightWriter is a grammar / structure checking utility. You can feed it a document, and it will produce a marked up copy listing high level critiques such as readability, delivery strength, and jargon. It competed with Grammatik, but RightWriter generally produced superior results.

• 3.x (Mac)
• 5.0 for Windows

PageMaker (1987) 133 Publishing Windows OS2 MacOS

Aldus PageMaker, later Adobe PageMaker, is a desktop publishing program for Mac and Windows. First released in 1985, PageMaker was the first desktop publishing program for the Macintosh. It was followed over a year later with the release of 1.0 for the IBM PC. The PC version was a notable application as it was one of the few rare applications which would run under Windows 1.x. PC PageMaker 1.0 bundled a runtime version of Windows. This enabled MS-DOS users who had not decided to buy Windows to run PageMaker. Aldus skipped version 2.0 on the PC to bring version number in sync with the 3.0 Mac product.

• 1.00
• 1.0A
• 3.00
• 3.01
• 4.0
• 5.0
• 6.x

Micrografx Portfolio (1987) 4 Utility Graphics Windows

Micrografx Portfolio is a Windows 1.x preview and clipboard tool for use with Micrografx Clip art. It previews clipart on the screen and lets the user copy items to the clipboard, or export them to Micrografx Windows Draw and Micrografx In-A-Vision/Desginer. They can also be used with Micrografx Windows Graph. Clip art can be converted with Micrografx Windows Convert

• 1.0

Grammatik (1988) 0 Utility MacOS

Grammatik is a standalone grammar checker, and was possibly the first grammar checker for personal computers. Later versions were built in to Word Perfect. It competed against RightWriter.

• Mac 2.0

Micrografx Designer (1988) 2 Graphics Publishing Windows OS2

Micrografx Designer, originally released as IN-A-VISON for Windows 1.x, is a vector based drawing and design program. It features ease of use, multiple layers, and dimensioning. Micrografx also sold large libraries of clip art. It competed against Corel Draw.

• 1.1
• 2.0
• 3.0
• 3.1
• 4.0

Direct Access (1988) 3 Utility Windows

Direct Access is an easy to use menuing program designed to simplify access to applications on systems with many programs loaded on the hard drive. It is customizable, includes screen blanking, and includes password protection and usage logging. Later versions also detect common programs already installed on the hard disk.

• 1.0 (Win)

FreeHand (1988) 3 Graphics Publishing MacOS Windows

FreeHand is a vector based drawing program used to create illustrations. It is similar to CorelDraw and Adobe Illustrator. Initially it offered more features and flexibility than illustrator. It was created by Altsys, sold through Aldus, then sold to Macromedia, and then finally was assimilated by Adobe. Later versions repositioned itself as a content creation system for the web through Flash. The final version was Freehand MX (version 11) in 2003.

• 1.0
• 2.0
• 3.1
• 4.0
• 5.0

Micrografx Windows Convert (1988) 2 Utility Windows

Micrografx Windows Convert is a simple utility program that converts between Micrografx In-A-Vision/Designer .PIC files and AutoDesk AutoCad drawing exchange .DXF files. Includes a Windows 2.1/286 runtime.Clipart can also be used with Micrografx Graph, Micrografx Windows Draw, and Micrografx Portfolio.

• 2.x

Fontware (1988) 0 Publishing DOS Windows

Bitstream Fontware is a tool that converts commercial vectored fonts in to formats for use with applications such as Aldus Pagemaker running under Microsoft Windows 2. The program itself is DOS-based but the fonts it generates are for Windows.

• 2.0

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

CorelDraw! (1989) 49 Graphics Publishing Windows

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.

• 1.x
• 2.0
• 3.0
• 4.0
• 5.0
• 6.0
• 7.0

PubTech File Organizer (1989) 0 Utility Publishing Windows

The PubTech File Organizer is an alternate desktop shell for Windows that attempts to mimic the Macintosh Finder. It features drive icons directly on the desktop, a Garbage icon, and folders that open in new cascaded windows with icons representing files. Applications are easily accessible from an "Applications" menu. Files and programs may be placed directly on the File Organizer desktop. In many ways, it is similar to the Windows 95 desktop, but the earlier versions work under Windows 2!

• 2.11
• 3.10

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

Correct Grammar (1989) 0 Word Processor Utility Windows

Correct Grammar is a grammar checking and analysis tool for DOS. Correct Grammar incorporates technology from the Houghton Mifflin CorrectText system.

• 2.x (Win)

Arts and Letters Graphics Editor (1989) 1 Publishing Windows

Arts & Letters, from Computer Support Corporation, is an easy to use line based illustration package. It competed against Corel Draw, and Micrografx Designer. Features include multitasking, rotation, different viewing levels, shading, color, and image combining. The first version was for MS-DOS, and version 2 ran under Windows 2. It later repositioned itself as a sign/banner type program like the Print Shop.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 5.0
• 6.0

Word for Word (1989) 0 Utility Windows

Word for Word is a document converter that features the ability to convert multiple documents automatically, while retaining as much formatting as possible.

• 6.x (Win)

ImageStyler (1989) 2 Publishing Windows

Adobe ImageStyler is a website creation tool with an emphasis on graphics. It supports making complete sites including styling across multiple pages, HTML generation, and scripting.

• 1.x