• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

1980s productivity software

M

Madrobby

Experienced Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2018
Messages
95
Location
Tucson, AZ
I’m looking for suggestions and your favorites regarding 1980s era productivity software, from the age of the IBM PC, XT and AT. I’m running a small business software company myself and our two main products are time tracking and software for managing recurring tasks and workflow documentation, and I’m eager to see what people came up with 35 years ago.

From collecting early personal computers it’s obvious that the late 1970s and most of the 1980s were a time of great experimentation and many applications were released as computers made their way into businesses of all sizes.

I’m interested in anything in the space of Personal Information Managers, DIY database applications, spreadsheets, innovative calendaring and so on.

As an example, one of my favorite 80s applications has to be Lotus Agenda. (It’s very good at what it does, but perhaps it failed to catch on with a large audience because computers weren’t capable enough at the time to provide an easier to learn UI, so it never got mass appeal beyond power users! And yeah, Agenda is technically 90s software—so sue me.)

What’s your favorites? What should I try? :)

Especially anything innovative that didn’t quite make it. I think in this day and age when so many applications look exactly the same and are dumbed down and software makers assume users aren’t capable of thinking for themselves, we ouught to go back and revisit the past and see if maybe some previously failed ideas could be revived.
 
My favorite MS-DOS productivity software of the late 80s is the first iteration of Robert Ripberger's Right Hand Man. The story of the company that eventually marketed it commercially, Futurus, is interesting and storied; see https://creativeloafing.com/content-184868-Cover-Story:-A-hated-man for part of it. The early DOS versions were pure brilliance; the later Windows version, while usable, wasn't quite the revolutionary product RHM for DOS was. RHM really came into its own over LAN connections.

Note that the Futurus LLC of today does not appear to be the same company as the Futurus that sold RHM and later Team. Robert Ripberger is still in business; after he split with Martinson and Futurus, he founded LAN-ACES, marketing groupware software. This company is, as far as I can tell, still in business.

Since this is the PC and clones subforum, I'll refrain from waxing eloquent about the software I actually used in the mid 80s, which ran on TRSDOS and later LS-DOS, especially Misosys' PRO-NTO and PRO-WAM, and Tandy's Scripsit Pro.

I actually used RHM, which got its start very late in the 80s, in the early 90s. It reminded me a bit of a super PRO-NTO. :)
 
Last edited:
I liked Energraphics charting program for DOS when I was in college, Harvard Graphics was also decent later on.
Lotus Works was a great combo app (word, database, spreadsheet, mailmerge).

The DOS era and early Windows 3.0 era was a great time for stand alone app development. All kinds of programs competed for the crown with companies rising out of nothing and then crashing within a few years. Even power players like Wordperfect came out with weird add-on apps. Things went downhill with the arrival of MS office becoming the standard and everything else dying or being a small niche.
 
Also Microsoft buying up the competition as in the likes of Foxbase which was much nicer than Microsoft Access.
 
Lotus 1-2-3 has to be on the top of the list. It was so important that it spurred the creation of the LIM (EMS) memory expansion standard.
During the 80s, Word Perfect was perhaps the most popular Wupro.
Then there was the series of programs that went along with Novell Netware.
There were several popular database contenders, but Ashton-Tate dBASE was perhaps the most popular.
Aldus Pagemaker was a pioneer in desktop publishing.
Peachtree had arguably the most popular accounting software.
 
How about AutoCAD?

Or Corel Draw? That was the only reason for me to run Windows.
 
If you are really looking for something "innovative that didn’t quite make it.", check out Viscorp Visi On. It's basically a GUI environment and office suite released years before Microsoft released Windows. The entire thing was built in a theoretically portable Smalltalk-like virtual machine. Even the user interface itself had some things Windows/Mac didn't get until much later, such as built in help with hyperlinking.
 
An interesting sideline is the add-on market for the major titles. The most oddball was 4Word, a word processor designed to run inside Lotus 1-2-3.
 
Since I was just mentioning it elsewhere, here is a PDF that lists some of the top 500 IBM PC (specifically CDP compatible) software products as of November 1983: http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=17172917283354586366

Of course old magazine will have similar lists of applications that were for sale. And as others mentioned, not all of the productivity software was on the IBM PC in the 80s.
 
Stone said:
I didn't mention Corel Draw! :)
Click to expand...

I didn't mention AutoCAD under Windows. I almost said I never ran it that way but it occurs to me I did within the last seven years. Prior to that I had only ever even seen the MSDOS version. In fact, I always needed that horrible 80287 emulation software because I couldn't afford an 80387. I had AutoCAD at home.

Professionally (prior to seven years ago) I never used AutoCAD. It was CADDS5, which didn't run on PC/XT/AT, or, Cimatron, Unigraphics, Pro Engineer, and probably a few others, but none of those during the 80s, and all under Windows.
 
I still have some schematic artwork done with Schema on a 5160. One of these days I'll see if I can print them. Back then, the big DOS EDA package was OrCAD. I think I still have the original OrCAD demo floppy.

Did anyone mention Ventura Publisher, Multimate Advantage, Micrografix Designer? Borland Sidekick was very popular.

Actually, if I wanted to make a list, I'd probably just look at the first 500 or so floppies in my 5.25" top file drawer. :)
 
Last edited:
I used wordstar (version 5 I think it was, it’s was old by that point I think I got it at a yard sale around 1991). It had dot codes you had to use to adjust everything, but I do think you could do a print preview in this version, even on my Hercules card.

Eventually I got some sort of office suite for dos. Some TLA. I don’t recall which. PFS WPS something like one of those probably.

Procomm plus was mandatory for BBS use.

Everyone I knew used WordPerfect 5.1 instead.

At the local genealogy library I remember using Quattro pro to check in and out the microfilm and things like that.
 
Wordstar was the most popular Word Processor till mid 80's. Wordperfect took off later, version 4.2 was the first really popular. Before the dawn of Windows (I mean version 3.0, the previous ones where a joke) the Office "killer" apps were:
* Word Perfect 4.2 or 5.x (many people keep also a copy of Wordstart 3.4)
* Lotus 123 / Borland Quattro Pro
* dBASE III+ (IV was less popular) / FoxBase+ (FoxPro was rare)
* Harvard Graphics

There where computer introductory courses combining *all* those programs and they where really popular. By mid 90's M$ Office took off and almost nobody used that apps (Word Perfect showed more resistance, though).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top