Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 79 Graphics Publishing Novelty DOS 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 (DOS)
• 1.0
• 2.0
• 3.0
• 4.0
• 6.0
• 8.0

Microsoft Plus! (1995) 56 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.

• 95
• 98

After Dark (1989) 36 Novelty MacOS Windows DOS

After Dark, from Berkeley Systems, Inc, is a set of entertaining screen savers for Mac and Windows. After Dark for Windows started off as "Magic Screen Saver" for Windows 2.x. After Dark was most famous for its "Flying Toasters" screen saver. Afterdark was very popular on both the early Macintosh computers and Windows 3.0, as neither included any kind of screen saver or screen blanker that would help prevent screen burn-in.

• 1.0 for Macintosh
• Magic ScreenSaver
• 1.0 for Windows
• 2.x
• 1.0 for DOS
• 3.x
• 4.x
• Tenth Anniversary
• 9

Encarta (1993) 22 Reference Windows MacOS

Microsoft Encarta was a home oriented interactive encyclopedia that was often sold with new OEM machines. Unlike a paper encyclopedia, Encarta took full advantage of being on a computer, with updates from the Internet, sound clips and movies, interactive charts and games, and good navigation.

• 1994
• 1995
• 1996
• 1997
• 1998
• 1999

Microsoft BOB (1995) 15 Novelty Windows

Microsoft BOB is a Windows 3.1 graphical shell intended for novice users. It presents your desktop as a series of "rooms" with various selectable objects, and assists you with a friendly animated guide. It features vector based graphics that scale to any size or resolution screen, supports user profiles, and includes rudimentary editor, calendar, address book, and checking programs. It was created as a response to Packard Bell Navigator and is somewhat comparable to Apple At Ease and 3DNA.

• 1.00
• 1.00a

Bookshelf (1987) 15 Reference DOS Windows MacOS

Microsoft Bookshelf is a CD-ROM based multimedia reference tool from Microsoft, including a dictionary, thesaurus, quotations, atlas, and other types of references. Some versions were included and integrated with Microsoft Office, albeit sometimes stripped down.

• 87
• 91
• 92
• 94
• 95
• 96-97
• 98
• 2000

Adobe Acrobat Reader (1994) 10 Document DOS MacOS Windows OS2

Acrobat Reader is the free software from Adobe used to read, view, and print documents created by the commercial Adobe Acrobat product. Its primary strength is that documents appear and print identically across differing systems.

• 1.0
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x

Omnipage Pro (1992) 7 Document Windows

Omnipage is an optical character recognition (scanned image) application that can export to a number of document formats. It was often bundled with scanners.

• 2.x
• 5.0
• 4.0LE
• 6.0
• 7.0
• 8.0
• 9.0
• 10.0
• 12

Microsoft Fine Artist (1994) 7 Graphics Novelty Windows MacOS

Microsoft Fine Artist is a dumbed down Microsoft Bob-like drawing program targeted at children. It was sold alongside, and later bundled with, a word processor called Microsoft Creative Writer.

• 1.x

Microsoft Musical Instruments (1994) 7 Reference Novelty Windows

Microsoft Musical Instruments is a multimedia CD ROM encyclopedia of musical instruments from around the world. Part of the Microsoft Home family of multimedia products.

• 1.x

Microsoft Dangerous Creatures (1994) 6 Reference Novelty Windows

Multimedia title from the Microsoft Home series about venomous and dangerous animals, such as spiders, snakes, fish, etc. from around the world. Runs on Windows 3.1 or later.

• 1.0

Encarta Virtual Globe (1997) 6 Reference Windows

Encarta Virtual Globe is a companion multimedia product to Microsoft Encarta, and was also included on the Encarta Reference Suite DVD. Microsoft Encarta Virtual Globe contains detailed geographical and topographical maps and information, a huge database of places, geography games, satellite photographs, and 3D "flights" over major landmarks.

• 1998 Edition

Faces (1998) 3 Graphics Novelty Windows

Faces 3.0 is a face composting tool similar to that which law enforcement uses. Select from a large number of facial features and parameters to re-create almost any face.

• 3.x

PC Globe (1990) 2 Reference DOS

PC Globe is an electronic atlas of the world that provides profiles, maps, geography, and graphics for the countries of the world. It can generate a variety of reports using this data and export map graphics. They also sold a USA specific version called PC USA that contains more detail about the US states. A related product was released for Windows as PC Globe Maps N Facts.

• 3.0
• 4.0
• 5.0

Microsoft Ancient Lands (1994) 2 Reference Novelty Windows

Multimedia software from the Microsoft Home series providing reference material of the ancient Roman, Greek, and Egyptian civilizations. Runs on Windows 3.1 or later.

• 1.0

Music Mentor (1992) 2 Reference Windows

Music Mentor is a comprehensive multimedia classical music tutorial, and includes a variety of sample midi files. The software includes a small built in sequencer, but also bundles Midisoft Recording Session for more advanced music editing.

• 1.x

Cellular Automata Lab (1989) 2 Novelty DOS

Cellular Automata Lab is a powerful commercial scientific mathematical program for working with and exploring Cellular Automata, a system where individual mathematical elements grow, spread, and die based on a set of rules (like the old BASIC "Life" programs). This software provides functionality to create custom sets of rules. Although it had some potential applications, this specific product is more of a novelty, similar to fractal generators. It was published by Autodesk during a period of experimental exploration in to new scientific applications.

• 1.0

BodyWorks (1991) 1 Reference DOS Windows

BodyWorks, from Software Marketing Corp, is an interactive computerized human anatomy reference for DOS and Windows. It is an informal educational/multimedia product targeted at home users.

• 2.0
• 3.0
• 4.0
• 5.0
• Classic

Microsoft Wine Guide (1994) 1 Reference Windows

Wine Guide is a "multimedia" CD of wines from around the world. Enjoy some vintage wine with your vintage computing!

• 1995

Dilbert Break A Day (1997) 1 Novelty Windows MacOS

Released in 1997 by DayBreak Software, Break A Day is a calendar that shows a different Dilbert comic every day. Includes a 16-bit Windows 3.1 version, 32-bit Windows 9x/NT version, and a Mac version.

• 1

AOLPress (1997) 1 Editor Document Windows

AOL Press 2.0 is a Windows based what-you-see-is-what-you-get HTML editor from AOL. It competed with other HTML Cuisinarts such as Microsoft Front Page.

• 2.0

ABC 3D Atlas (1997) 1 Reference Novelty Windows

A 3D world atlas.

• 98

Websters Dictionary (1988) 1 Reference DOS

A computerized version of Webster's Dictionary from Proximity Technology Inc. Once loaded, you can access it from within any DOS application using a hot key.

• 1.x

XDict (1997) 1 Reference Windows

A Chinese dictionary

• 1.x

Johnny Castaway Screen Saver (1992) 1 Novelty Windows

Johnny Castaway Screen Saver from Sierra.

• 1.x