Sideways (1985) 0 Spreadsheet Utility DOS

Sideways is a printing utility that enables you to print a spreadsheet sideways (landscape) when using a graphics printer. While that might seem like a common basic function these days, this is something that early spreadsheets lacked. Using continuous form (tractor feed) paper, a Sideways printout may seamlessly span multiple pages without having to tape or glue pages together. Sideways was sometimes bundled with spreadsheet products. "Sideways leaves no text un-turned".

• 3.11
• 3.3

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

Software Bridge (1989) 0 Utility DOS

Software Bridge is a set of executable word processor file converters. It can convert between a large number of word processors while preserving formatting.

• 3.x

Spellin! (1992) 0 Utility DOS

Spellin! is a spell checker that works from within Lotus 1-2-3 to find and correct spelling errors in spreadhseet text fields. Includes a database of 90,000 words and support custom dictionaries. Note: Lotus 1-2-3 3.x Requires Release Spellin release 3

• 1.x

SpinRite (1988) 26 Utility DOS

SpinRite, by Gibson Research, is a tool that can diagnose, repair, and rejuvenate the low-level formatting and optimize the interleave of MFM and RLL (ST412/506 interface) hard disk drives. Its pattern testing ability is also useful for verifying the operation of SCSI and IDE hard drives.

• 1.x
• II
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.0

Stacker (1991) 5 Utility Archive DOS 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)
• 4.0 (DOS)

StarProof Bridge (1984) 0 Word Processor Utility DOS

The StarProof Bridge is a utility that enabled IBM Word Proof to work with WordStar documents.

• 1.00

Super PC-Kwik (1992) 1 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

SuperKey (1986) 3 Utility DOS

Borland SuperKey is a combination resident macro program and file encryption tool. It can record and play back keystrokes in most DOS application, enabling you to automate repetitive tasks. It also includes a file encryption tool that lets you password protect sensitive files. It was marketed alongside Borland Sidekick.

• 1.x

SuperSort (1980) 0 Utility DOS

Micropro SuperSort is a generalized and flexible sort and merge utility designed to operate at high speed on huge volumes of text-file based data. It can also be used for manipulating individual data files, doing things like reorganizing fields or changing field lengths.

• 2.x

SuperStor (1992) 0 Utility DOS

SuperStor is a drive compression program similar to Stacker, DoubleDisk or Microsoft DriveSpace. can not compress.

• Pro 2X

System Commander (1996) 6 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)

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

TopView (1985) 2 Utility DOS

Released by IBM in 1984, TopView was a text-mode windowed multitasker for the IBM PC, XT, and AT computer. It featured preemptive multitasking, text-based windowed task sessions, overlapping windows, and supports the use of a mouse. In part, it was one of the reasons why overlapping windows were added to Microsoft Windows 2.0. TopView was later overtaken by DesqView, OS/2, and Windows. For more information, see the Topview 1.00 Software Spotlight.

• 1.x

ToyBox Menu Manager / Magic Desk (1992) 2 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)

Tree86 (1990) 1 Utility DOS

Tree86, from The Aldridge Company, is an easy to use tree-based file manager for DOS.

• 3.x

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

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

V-Spell (1985) 2 Utility DOS

V-Spell, from CompuView, is a spell checking product designed to accompany VEDIT. VEDIT was a powerful, customizable, and portable editor designed for programmers and power users.

• 1.x

VersaCAD (1988) 0 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

Video Tape File System (1991) 0 Utility Reference DOS

Video Tape File System is a database program that you can use to organize your VHS video tapes. You can sort by title, actor, or category, print labels, and print a complete reference. It includes a top 100 movie reviews, can retrieve movie review information from Prodigy, and it includes 50 colored labels to get you started. There were version for Apple II and IBM PC.

• Plus

ViruSafe (1991) 0 Utility DOS

ViruSafe is a fast, comprehensive yet easy to use virus scanner produced by the makers of XTree. It can find known viruses and monitor files for any kind of unwanted changes. It features the ability to schedule scans, and can create a "recovery" boot disk to deal with boot sector viruses.

• 4.5

Wang Freestyle (1990) 1 Utility Publishing DOS

Wang Freestyle is an "annotation" program that operates by making screen shots of DOS applications, to which the user may then add hand-written notes using a stylus or add a voice recording with a telephone-like handset. It features a Macintosh-like desktop that displays the annotated documents graphically on a proprietary high resolution monitor, and integrates a form of mail and fax.

• 1.x

WordPerfect Library (1998) 0 Utility Editor PIM DOS

WordPerfect Library, introduced in 1986 and later renamed WordPerfect Office (not to be confused with Corel's Windows office suite of the same name), was a package of DOS network and stand-alone utility software for use with WordPerfect. The package included a DOS menu shell and file manager, whose macros allowed text to be moved from one program to another (for example, from WordPerfect to Calendar, and vice versa), a do-all editor, apparently that of Wordperfect 3.0, which could edit binary files as well as WordPerfect or Shell macros, calendar, and a general purpose flat file database program that could be used as the data file for a merge in WordPerfect and as a contact manager.

• 2.0

WordPerfect Office (Groupware) (1990) 0 Utility Editor PIM DOS

WordPerfect Office, from WordPerfect Corp, is a groupware utility that includes a menu shell, text editor, calendar, calculator, notebook, and file manager. It is unrelated to the later Corel office suite by the same name. Earlier versions were known as WordPerfect Library.

• 3.0