Microsoft Office (1991) 169 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Publishing PIM Database Windows MacOS

Microsoft Office is a bundle of Microsoft's productivity application. This includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and later Mail, Office Manager, and Outlook. The "1.x" versions of Microsoft Office were simply a marketing bundle of the standalone products sold together with no other packaging changes. Even though these were distinct applications, rather than one single monolithic program, they shared a similar user interface, integrated well together and shared the ability to embed documents from one application in the documents of another.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.0
• 4.2
• 4.3
• 95
• 97/98
• 2000
• XP (2002 Beta)

Internet Explorer (1995) 160 Web Browser Windows MacOS Unix Mac OS X

Microsoft Internet Explorer is a web browser application created by Microsoft primarily for Microsoft Windows. It was initially based on Spyglass Mosaic. At various points, Internet Explorer was also available for MacOS, Solaris, and HP-UX.

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 5.5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• 11

PageMaker (1987) 91 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

Microsoft Works (1986) 59 Word Processor Spreadsheet Communications Database Windows MacOS

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.

• 2.x (Win)
• 3.x (Win)
• 4.0
• 4.5
• 5.x
• 6.0
• 9.0

Microsoft Word (1983) 44 Word Processor Windows DOS MacOS

The Microsoft Word word processor was first introduced for MS-DOS in 1983. Its design made use of a mouse and WYSIWYG graphics. Its crude WYSIWYG/mouse support was a direct response to the Apple Lisa/Mac, and VisiCorp Visi On. Initially it competed against many popular word processors such as WordStar, Multimate, and WordPerfect. Word for DOS was never really successful.

• 1.x (Windows)
• 2.x (Windows)
• 6.x
• 95
• 97

WordStar (1981) 42 Word Processor Windows

WordStar, originally from MicroPro, was a popular word processor during the early 80s. It was ported to a number of CP/M architectures as well as Unix and PC/MS-DOS. It competed directly against many word processors, including WordPerfect, Microsoft Word for DOS, and Multimate. By the late 80s most business word processing had moved to WordPerfect. In the early 90s, Microsoft Word for Windows took over.

• 1.5 for Windows
• 2.0 for Windows

WordPerfect (1983) 33 Word Processor Other Windows

During the late 1980's, WordPerfect was THE standard word processor for DOS based PCs in big business. Under DOS, it competed mostly against Wordstar. WordPerfect for Windows enjoyed some success in the early Windows environments, but was quickly displaced by Microsoft Word for Windows. Later Windows versions were part of Borland Office/Novell PerfectOffice/Corel Office/Corel WordPerfect Office.

• 4.1 (Amiga)
• 5.x (Win)
• 6.0 (Win)
• 6.1 (Win)
• 7.x (Win)
• 8.x
• 9.x (2000)

Netscape (1994) 33 Web Browser Windows Unix MacOS OS2 Linux Other Mac OS X

Netscape Navigator/Communicator was the first commercial web browser, displacing the free NCSA Mosaic. 1.0 was first released in December 1994, and initially offered advanced features such as progressively rendering pages as they loaded. It quickly gained many other features and capabilities and became the most popular web browser in the mid 1990s. One reason for its popularity, it was licensed freely for personal and non-profit use, although companies were expected to pay for a license. It later competed with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari, and eventually was open sourced in to the Mozilla browser.

• 0.x
• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.0.x
• 4.0x
• 4.5x
• 6.x
• 7.x

Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 32 Graphics Publishing Novelty Windows

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
• 2.0
• 3.0
• 4.0
• 6.0
• 8.0

Procomm Plus (1985) 23 Communications Windows

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.

• 1.0 For Windows
• 2.x for Windows
• 3.0 For Windows

Microsoft FrontPage (1995) 22 Publishing Windows

Microsoft FrontPage is a WYSIWYG HTML editor/Cuisinart for Microsoft Windows.

• 1.0
• 1.1
• 97 (v2)
• 98 (v3)

Lotus Word Pro (1996) 21 Word Processor Windows

Word Pro was a word processor based upon Ami Pro (originally published by Samna).
Lotus acquired Samna in 1990. Word Pro 96 is the first release to no longer use the Ami Pro naming.

• 96
• 97

Adobe Acrobat (1993) 20 Publishing Windows MacOS Unix

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.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x

CorelDraw! (1989) 19 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

pcANYWHERE (1990) 11 Communications Windows DOS

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

• 1.0 (Win)
• 7.5 (Win)
• 8.0 (Win)

Microsoft Publisher (1991) 10 Publishing Windows

Publisher is a desktop publishing tool from Microsoft geared towards ease of use with the home user. Microsoft publisher can be used to created professional looking newsletters, flyers, forms, and more. It includes guides and wizards that walk users through creation of common document types, while still offering powerful flexibility.

• 1.0
• 2.0
• 95 (3.0)
• 97 (4.0)
• 98 (5.0)

Professional Write (1986) 10 Word Processor Windows

Professional Write, from Software Publishing Corporation, was a popular word processor for home use during the late 80s and early 90s. It features an easy to use menu system and an integrated spell checker. Professional Write was a revamp and replacement for SPC's earlier PFS:Write.

• Plus 1.x (Win)

Lotus SmartSuite (1992) 10 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations PIM Database Windows

IBM/Lotus SmartSuite is an office suite from Lotus software for Windows and OS/2. SmartSuite includes SmartCenter, 1-2-3, Word Pro, Freelance Graphics, Approach, Organizer, and ScreenCam.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.0
• 96
• 97
• 9.0
• 9.1
• 9.5
• 9.6
• 9.7
• 9.8

MatLab (1986) 10 Mathematics Windows MacOS

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.

• 4.x
• 5.x

LapLink (1987) 9 Communications Windows

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.

• 7.5 for Windows 95
• 2000
• Gold (9.0)

Mathcad (1989) 7 Mathematics Windows

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.

• 3.x
• 4.0
• 5.0

PowerPoint (1987) 6 Presentations Windows MacOS

Microsoft PowerPoint is a graphical presentation tool that is today part of Microsoft Office. Prior to its acquisition by Microsoft, it was known as "Presenter" from Forethought Inc. These are the standalone versions. For the Office bundled versions, see Microsoft Office.

• 2.0
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 95 (7.0)

NCSA Mosaic (1993) 6 Web Browser Windows

First released in 1993, NCSA Mosaic was the first really popular web browser. Unlike the original browser, WorldWideWeb on NeXT, Mosaic was available for the Microsoft Windows platform and added features such as inline graphics viewing. It was developed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. NCSA Mosaic was distributed freely for non commercial use, but required a license for commercial business use. It was licensed by a number of third party OEMs, including Microsoft, who used it for the basis of Microsoft Internet Explorer. In 1995, its popularly quickly gave way to Netscape Navigator.

• 1

AmiPro (1991) 6 Word Processor Windows

Ami Pro, also called just Ami initially, was a word processor sold by Samna and later Lotus Software, where it became Lotus Word Pro. Ami was one of the first word processors for Microsoft Windows, beating MS Word by about a year. Other early Windows word processors included NBI Legend and WinText

• 1.2
• 2.x
• 3.x

StarOffice (1995) 6 Word Processor Windows OS2 Unix Linux

StarOffice, initially from Star Division GmbH is an office suite containing a word processor, spreadsheet, drawing program, and graphing program. It was later owned by Sun Microsystems and then Oracle, and spawned the open source OpenOffice and LibreOffice. Also see the earlier StarWriter

• Business Pack
• 3.0
• 3.1
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.0