MS-DOS (1981) 918 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.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.00
• 3.10
• 3.20
• 3.21
• 3.30
• 3.31
• 4.0x
• 5.0
• 6.0
• 6.20
• 6.21
• 6.22
• 7.1 (CDU)

XingMPEG Player (1996) 1 Media Player Windows

XingMPEG Player is an MPEG video player designed for Windows. It could accelerate video using a Direct Draw video overlay. It was often bundled with video cards.

• 2.x

PC-DOS (1981) 76 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.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x
• 7.x
• 2000

Microsoft Word (1983) 60 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)
• 4.0 (Mac)
• 1.x (OS/2)
• 5.x (UNIX)
• 2.x (Windows)
• 5.x (Mac)
• 6.x
• 95
• 97

NeXTStep (1987) 19 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
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x

America Online (1992) 2 Web Browser Chat DOS Windows

America Online was a proprietary dial-up online service that eventually grew to offerer Internet access. In the mid 1990s AOL was very heavily promoted. Every month or two, you were sure to get a free AOL floppy disk or CD-ROM in the mail. AOL originated as PC-Link.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.0

12 Months Screen Calendar (1996) 1 Utility Windows

12 Month Screen Calendar v1.00 displays the next 12 months on one screen. Distributed as freeware by Command Line Software.

• 1.0

Microsoft OS2 Presentation Manager For NT (1995) 1 Windows

The OS/2 Presentation Manager for NT is an add-on that provides compatibility with 16-bit OS/2 1.x GUI applications.

• For NT 3.51
• For NT 4.0

Windows NT 4.0 (1995) 303 Windows

Windows NT 4.0 is the successor to the Windows NT 3.x release. In this release, the user interface from Windows 95 was integrated, making NT just as easy to use as its consumer counterpart. Internet Explorer was bundled, providing a web browser out of the box. Speed was improved by moving components into kernel-mode, at the expense of security and reliability - changes Windows is suffering from today, and is being reverted. NT 4 was followed up by Windows 2000. | 1.0 | 2.x | 3.x | NT 3.x | 95 | NT 4.0 | 98 | 2000 | ME | All |

• Cairo/Hydra
• 4.0
• Patches

Borland C++ (1990) 43 DOS Windows OS2

Borland C++ targeted the professional application development market, while Turbo C++ targeted the home and hobbyist market. Borland C++ included additional tools, compiler code-optimization, and documentation to address the needs of commercial developers. In 1997 Borland C++ was replaced with Borland C++ Builder.

• 2.0 (DOS)
• 3.x
• 1.0 (OS/2)
• 1.5 (OS/2)
• 4.x
• 2.0 (OS/2)
• 5.x

Corel Office (1996) 3 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Windows

Corel Office is a software bundle that includes WordPerfect and a number of other office applications. It competed unsuccessfully against Microsoft Office. This bundle started out as "Borland Office", was briefly known as "Novell PerfectOffice", then "Corel Office", and under Corel it later became "WordPerfect Office". (Not to be confused with the unrelated ~1990 groupware program, also called "WordPerfect Office")

• 6.1
• 7

Procomm Plus (1985) 7 Communications DOS 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.

• 1.1 (shareware)
• 1.1
• 2.x (Shareware)
• 2.x
• 1.0 For Windows
• 2.x for Windows
• 3.0 For Windows

Packard Bell Navigator (1993) 3 Utility Other Windows DOS

Packard Bell Navigator is an alternate user interface that replaces the Windows 3.1 Program Manager shell. It presents the content of your computer as a series of rooms.

• 1.0
• 1.1
• 3.5
• 3.6
• 3.9

LANtastic (1990) 0 DOS OS2 Windows

Lantastic is an easy to use, low cost networking system targeted at small networks and home users. It was very popular and highly rated in the early 1990s. Unlike most LAN networking software of the time, Lantastic required only installation and minimal, straightforward, configuration. Lantastic gives users the ability to share printers and files on a hard drive or CD-ROM. It is considered a "peer-to-peer" network, as there is no need for a dedicated server. Any computer may be configured as a server as well as a client. Lantastic was also very memory efficient, using minimal DOS memory in both workstation and sever modes, enabling users to run most popular DOS applications while Lantastic was running. Lantastic supported Ethernet, ARCNET and Token Ring networks. Artisoft also sold networking kits that included both network adapters and the Lantastic software. Lantastic was avaialble for DOS, Windows, and OS/2. At the time it competed against Novell Netware Lite, and many other small LAN oriented products.

• 3.0
• 4.0
• 5.0
• Z
• 1.x for OS/2
• 6.x
• 7.0

Connectix RAM Doubler (1996) 1 Utility Windows

RAM Doubler is a utility for Windows 3.1 that uses advanced resource management and memory compression techniques to allow more applications to run side by side. It was designed to be simple and easy to use compared to some competing programs. It competed against similar tools such as SoftRam, Hurricane, and MagnaRam

• Windows 3.x

Borland Turbo Assembler (1989) 9 DOS Windows

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
• 2.x
• 4.x
• 5.x

OS/2 Developer Connection (1995) 0 OS2

IBM's semi-often correspondence for OS/2 development.

• Vol. 8
• Vol. 12

Internet Information Server (1996) 1 Server Windows

An HTTP webserver and application server for Windows.

• 1.x

Clarion DOS Extender (1996) 0 DOS

The Clarion DOS extender is a tool that enables you to create 386 Protected mode applications for the Clarion Database.

• 3.x

Microsoft Cinemania (1994) 0 Reference Windows MacOS

Microsoft Cinemania is a reference application that was released by Microsoft that was a database of films that contained still images, sound clips, dialogues, sound tracks and some full motion video clips. The software was released annually until 1997, with the last version being Cinemania 97. Think of this as an early IMDB, but without the internet part.

• 1994
• 97

Inferno (1996) 0 Other

Inferno is a distributed operating system started at Bell Labs. Inferno is a descendant of Plan 9, and shares many design concepts and even source code in the kernel.

• Beta

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing (1988) 0 Education DOS Windows

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

• 1
• 4.x

ARCserve (1993) 0 Utility Server Windows

ARCserve, from Cheyenne Software Inc., is an enterprise grade backup software for Windows NT.

• 5.x
• 6.0

Persuasion (1991) 0 Presentations Windows MacOS

Aldus Persuasion is a presentation and slide creation program. "With the support that Persuasion offers - professional quality slides, overheads, handouts, and speaker notes - you can deliver your presentation with more confidence and ease than ever before." After version 2.x, Persuasion was purchased by Adobe.

• 2.x
• 3.0
• 4.0

Micrografx Picture Publisher (1990) 3 Graphics Publishing Windows

Formerly Astral Picture Publisher, Micrografx Picture Publisher is a bitmapped image editor for Windows that offered powerful and feature rich 24-bit color image editing on the Microsoft Windows platform prior to Photoshop for Windows. Picture Publisher was briefly considered the leading image editor on the Microsoft Windows platform until Adobe made Photoshop available for Windows.

• 2.x
• 3.1
• 4.0
• 5.0
• LE
• 6.0