Ability (1985) 2 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Communications Database Windows

Originally released in 1984 by the Canadian company Xanaro that went bankrupt, and then by Migent, Ability is an integrated office suite for DOS that includes word processor, spreadsheet, database, telecommunications, business graphing, presentation graphics capabilities, and built in file management. It features good integration between the different components, with the ability to import, share, and dynamically update data between them. It was advertised as a very easy to use and a quick to learn system.

• 2000

ArcView GIS (1996) 7 Graphics Other Database Windows

ArcView, from Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. is a geographical information system program for Win9x/NT.

• 3.3

Avast Anti-Virus (1999) 2 Utility Windows

Avast is a robust and popular anti-virus tool for DOS and Windows. It was sold commercially but offered a free version.

• 7.x

CleanSweep (1994) 0 Utility Windows

CleanSweep, from Quarterdeck, is a utility that assists with uninstalling and removing leftover files. It also moves programs from one drive to another, to a backup that can be restored later, or to another computer.

• 4.x

Colorado Backup (1996) 1 Utility Windows

Colorado Backup is the software provided with HP Colorado tape drives.

• 3.22 for Win 95

DataKeeper (1999) 0 Utility Windows

PowerQuest DataKeeper 3.0, formerly from HighPoint Technologies, is a powerful real-time backup program. It features the ability to continuously monitor backups, works with any removable media, compression, and registry protection.

• 3.0

FileMaker (1984) 4 Database Windows MacOS

FileMaker is a very easy to use graphical flat-file database management tool from Claris that allows for visual form and report creation. Originally for DOS, there were Macintosh versions and later it was ported to Windows.

• Pro 5.x

IBM Small Business Suite (2000) 0 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Graphics Server Database Windows Linux

IBM Small Business Suite for Linux V1.6 is a Development Platform with a Set of Personal Productivity Tools. It was intended to simplify businesses transitioning to "e-business" by providing a foundation on which users could “webify” their businesses. It includes IBM and Lotus middleware products for Linux and Productivity tools for Windows.

• 1.x

LapLink (1987) 1 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.

• 2000
• Gold (9.0)

Lotus Mail (1998) 0 Communications Windows

Lotus Mail was an interim product targeted at users of the older Lotus cc:Mail product, with the intent being that they would eventually switch to Lotus Notes/Domino. Lotus Mail features a user interface similar to cc:Mail, LDAP support, and powerful filtering options. Lotus Mail lacked support for HTML formatted e-mail (good!).

• 4.x

Lotus Notes (1993) 2 Communications PIM Windows MacOS

Lotus Notes is a powerful e-mail and collaboration tool. It was heavily used by large corporations. It was sometimes criticized for its complexity and bloat. Notes is a client server tool, and uses the Lotus Domino server (originally just called Lotus Notes server). Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino competed against Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange.

• 5.x

Lotus SmartSuite (1992) 27 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.

• 9.0
• 9.1
• 9.5
• 9.6

McAfee VirusScan (1995) 1 Utility DOS Windows OS2

McAfee VirusScan was a very popular and reliable virus scanner during the late 90s. Notably, they distributed a free shareware version of their product. VirusScan was often pre-loaded with OEM computers.

• 4.x

Microsoft Office (1991) 262 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Publishing PIM Database Windows

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.

• 2000

Microsoft Outlook (1997) 0 Communications PIM Windows

Microsoft Outlook (not to be confused with Outlook Express) is an enterprise grade e-mail client. It is primarily intended for use with Microsoft Exchange Server. It was available as both a stand-alone product and as part of Microsoft Office.

• 98

Microsoft Plus! (1995) 42 Utility Novelty Windows

Microsoft Plus! was an add-on package to Windows that added desktop themes, screen savers, sound effects, power-toys, and other assorted goodies for the home user. Plus! 95 also included Internet Explorer 1.0, which was not included in all Windows 95 distributions.

• 98

Microsoft Works (1986) 50 Word Processor Spreadsheet Communications Database Windows

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.

• 5.x
• 6.0

NetManage Chameleon (1993) 7 Communications Windows

NetManage Chameleon is a small and efficient TCP/IP networking stack and utility suite for Microsoft Windows. It includes an FTP client, Telnet client, E-mail client, and an NFS system for interoperation with Unix networks. Other GUI utilities include Bind, Finger, Ping, TFTP, FTP Server a TN3270 terminal emulator, Whois, and SNMP. Earlier versions ran on Windows 3.0 and 3.1.

• 8.0

Norton Commander (1986) 57 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

• 2.x (Win)

Norton Personal Firewall (2000) 0 Utility Windows

Norton Personal Firewall is a software product that helps protect computers against threats from the Internet at the TCP/IP protocol level.

• 2000

Norton SystemWorks (1998) 1 Utility Windows

Norton SystemWorks was a utility software suite by Symantec Corp. It integrates three of Symantec's most popular products – Norton Utilities, Norton CrashGuard and Norton AntiVirus – into one program designed to simplify solving common PC issues. Backup software was added later to high-end editions. SystemWorks was innovative in that it combined several applications into an all-in-one software for managing computer health, thus saving significant costs and time often spent on using different unrelated programs.

• 2000
• 2001

Norton Utilities (1983) 25 Utility 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.

• 4.0 for Win
• 2001 for Win

Oracle Forms and Reports (1997) 16 Database Windows

Oracle Forms and Reports is a GUI application builder. It is similar to Visual Basic, but uses the PL/SQL language and integrates heavily with Oracle Server databases.

• 6i

Oracle Server (1991) 0 Server Database Windows

Oracle Server is an enterprise grade relational database used in many corporations. It was mainly targeted at high end server operating systems, such as IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, HP UX, Digital VMS, Linux, and Microsoft Windows NT. Oracle makes current versions of their software avaialble for download, but older versions usually disappear.

• 8

Parsons Atomic Clock (1999) 1 Utility Windows

Parsons Atomic Clock is a fancy utility for synchronizing your computers clock with a time server, either via modem or to an internet time server. Features include an audio spoken clock, time drift estimates, daytime map, lunar phase events, and customizable time counters.

• 5.0