SimCity (1989) 7 DOS

SimCity is a strategy game in which you are the mayor of your own virtual city and you can control the aspects of it - from city planning of land use, development of infrastructure, zoning of schools, police and fire, and the problems that come with a city such as crime, education quality, etc...

• 1.x

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)

THINK C (1988) 3 MacOS

THINK C, originally from THINK Technologies and later Symantec, was a C compiler for the Apple Macintosh. Initially released in 1986 under the name "Lightspeed C", it featured libraries and extensions useful to creating native Macintosh applications. It competed with Macintosh Programmers Workshop.

• 3.x
• 4.x

CP/M 86 (1982) 31 CPM

CP/M-86 is a port of Digital Research's CP/M operating system to the Intel 8088/8086. The earlier CP/M-80 was extremely popular on 8080/Z80 microcomputers.

• 1.x

SpinRite (1988) 4 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

CorelDraw! (1989) 45 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

Microsoft Mouse (1984) 31 DOS Windows OS2

These are drivers provided by Microsoft for the Microsoft BusPort, serial, and PS/2 mice. Introduced in 1983, The Microsoft Mouse is historically important as it was one of Microsoft's earliest hardware products (The other being an Apple II Z-80 CP/M card). The first Mouse for the IBM PC was actually from Mouse Systems, not Microsoft. However, most clone mice emulated Microsoft's serial protocol and DOS driver software interface. The first Microsoft application designed to make full use of the mouse was Microsoft Word for DOS, and they hyped a product called "Microsoft Windows" (not released until several years later) that was to compete against the upcoming Apple Macintosh and the Mouse Systems based Viscorp Visi On.

• 1.0
• 2.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x
• 7.x

Micrografx Windows Draw (1986) 4 Graphics Windows

Micrografx Draw is a free-form vector based drawing program with a collection of clipart. The earlier versions are especially notable as being among the few programs produced for Microsoft Windows 1.x.

• 1.04

Ontrack Disk Manager (1987) 1 DOS

Ontrack Disk Manager is a BIOS overlay and partitioning tool that helps you overcome various BIOS hard drive size limits. It was commonly bundled with hard drives.

• 3.x
• 4.x

PowerPoint (1987) 11 Presentations 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.

• 1.0

Microsoft Excel (1985) 84 Spreadsheet MacOS Windows OS2

Excel, from Microsoft, is a powerful spreadsheet application for Mac, Windows, and OS/2. Excel was first released for the Mac. When it was ported to Windows 2.x, they started at version "2.0" to one up current Mac version. There was never a DOS version. Instead, DOS and 8-bit platforms used the older Microsoft Multiplan. Excel was later bundled as part of Microsoft Office

• 1.x
• 2.0
• 2.1
• 2.2

PrintMaster (1985) 4 Graphics DOS

Print Master was another sign and banner creation program similar to The Print Shop. The earlier version got in to trouble for looking too much like the Print Shop.

• 1.0
• Plus 2.0

QuarkXPress (1986) 3 Publishing MacOS

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

Quattro Pro (1987) 8 Spreadsheet DOS

Quattro Pro, initially just named "Quattro", is a spreadsheet application from Borland International. It competed against Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel, and had several advantages including tabbed sheets, and the ability to handle up to a million rows. Quattro Pro was the subject a lawsuit by Lotus, simply because because Quattro Pro copied their menu user interface, but Lotus claimed this was not allowed. This also affected The Twin and VP-Planner.

• 1.0
• Pro 1.x

Quicken (1989) 8 Financial DOS

Quicken, from Intuit, is a financial management tool for home users. It was first released in 1984 for DOS and later ported to Apple II, Macintosh, and Windows. Intuit also provided a more powerful product, QuickBooks, for small businesses.

• 2.x for DeskMate
• 3.x (DOS)

AutoSketch (1987) 9 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)

HyperAccess (1985) 0 Communications DOS

HyperAccess is a telecommunications program that features easy to use scripting and a large number of file transfer protocols. There were versions for DOS, OS/2 and Windows.

• 3.x

MS-DOS (1981) 1466 DOS

Originally 86-DOS, written by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products, DOS was a rough clone of CP/M for 8086 based hardware. Microsoft purchased it and licensed it to IBM for use with Microsoft's IBM PC language products. In 1982, Microsoft began licensing DOS to other OEMs that ported it to their custom x86 hardware and IBM PC clones.

• 2.x
• 3.00
• 3.10
• 3.20
• 3.21
• 3.30
• 3.31
• 4.0x

PC-DOS (1981) 166 DOS

IBM PC-DOS was an IBM branded version of MS-DOS licensed from Microsoft for use on the IBM PC system. Versions of PC-DOS paralleled that of MS-DOS up until version 6.1, where PC-DOS was independently maintained by IBM up until 7.1, the last version. Although not the only OS available for the IBM PC when it came out, it quickly became popular due to its low cost in comparison to the others. Its direct competitors on the PC at the time were CP/M-86 and UCSD p-System. The major differences between PC-DOS and MS-DOS were only in terms of driver support and built in programs until version 6.1 where development diverged.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x

Microsoft Word (1983) 126 Word Processor DOS MacOS Unix OS2 Windows

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 (DOS)
• 1.x (Mac)
• 2.x (DOS)
• 3.x (DOS)
• 3.x (Mac)
• 3.x (Unix)
• 4.0 (DOS)
• 5.x (DOS and OS/2)
• 1.x (Windows)

NeXTStep (1987) 21 Unix

NeXTSTEP, from NeXT Computers headed by Steve Jobs, is a Unix based operating system designed to run on m68K NeXT workstations. It later became the basis for OS X, with APIs and concepts preserved today.

• 0.x
• 1.x

Procomm Plus (1985) 14 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

Borland Turbo Assembler (1989) 44 DOS

Turbo Assembler is an x86 16-bit assembler from Borland. It competed against, and was often cited as faster than Microsoft Macro Assembler.

• 1.x

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing (1988) 0 Education DOS

An interactive typing tutor for the IBM PC that uses a variety of entertaining learning styles.

• 1

Managing Your Money (1989) 1 Financial DOS

Managing Your Money is your easy-to-use personal finance manager. MYM has all you'll need to take control of your finances. You can automate your checking account, track credit investments, reduce your debts, plan your savings, decide whether to refinance your mortgage, and much more. You don't have to use all this at first or ever. But it's nice to know its all here when you need it. It is sometimes titled as "Andrew Tobias' Managing Your Money".

• 5.0