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Commander Keen was with me back then and he still is now 
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Brief for sure. I loved the keystroke minimalism. I added Brief key mapping to my IDE's for a long time. Never felt as comfortable, though.
I also liked 4DOS and (don't laugh!) REXX by Mansfield Software Group for complex scripting.
Hard to imagine but I once thought a 20mb HDD was such a bounty! Now, it wouldn't hold one RAW-format picture.
Cheers,
Mike Fidler
"I intend to live forever - so far, so good." Steven Wright
"I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." Also Steven Wright
"I'm addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn't matter." Steven Wright yet again.
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Heck, 20MB wouldn't run a modern app at all!
I remember when Doom came out - that was what, 4 floppies? And we thought that was a lot! 
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I started REXX on a mainframe running VM. I became a Rexxpert and ended up writing Rexx interpreters built in to a couple of different products over time.
I used the PC implementation with OS/2 and then Windows. I miss it now.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I started with CLIST on TSO. REXX was the replacement. I wrote a program to
build and submit JCL in order to more easily extract hardware diagnostic
information for mainframes and peripherals.
I later wrote a program in REXX on VM called the Interactive Questionnaire Facility (IQF)
when I worked at the IBM Education Centre on Don Mills Rd in Toronto. It helped
Instructors to compose, administer, and report on Instructor and course evaluations.
Thanks for evoking those memories of fun times. 
Cheers,
Mike Fidler
"I intend to live forever - so far, so good." Steven Wright
"I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." Also Steven Wright
"I'm addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn't matter." Steven Wright yet again.
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On VM there was a great editor called XEDIT.
You could write macros for this in REXX.
I wrote a full-blown hex editor (for some colleagues working on TPF) using this combo.
I also wrote a bulletin board system.
I miss XEDIT and REXX!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Still in use
* grep
* sed
Things that I started with that have disappeared that I do not miss:
Thin wire Ethernet
Token ring networks
tiny monitors! EGA anyone?
Paper only documentation.
Floppy drives
(Mostly hardware, I see)
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Brief, jeez, I knew that editor at the cellular level in my fingers.
And, Norton Commander as well
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The oldest software that I still use today... probably vi. Although now it's vim, of course... And my first use of it was on a Sun3/180 running SunOS 3, not a PC...
Apart from that, probably Office is the single piece of software that has the longest unbroken lineage from when I first used it. I started working life on VAX/VMS, and DOS pretty much passed me by - straight into the joys of Windows 95 (which sucked in comparison to VMS!).
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
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Modern day Norton Commader reincarnations - Midnight Commander and FAR Manager - on daily basis.
Ah yes of course, the whole bunch of unix tools - grep, awk, sed, and so on. This is something that is standing above all times.
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Notepad was a killer app - seriously. In the original release of Windows NT 3.1 if you pressed Alt-F4 to exit Notepad you actually exited Windows to a nice blue screen.
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Vedit was one of the first full featured editors I used with CP/M and then when I built my first IBM AT clone it also became available for DOS although I do not use it now it was one of the best programming editors of the day, the company is still around (surprise)
Greenview Data Company Overview[^]
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dBase III+(Ashton-Tate) => SQL server
Clipper(Nantucket Corp) => Visual Studio
LANtastic => Windows 3.11 and now Active Directory
Sad they're gone but a lot of programmers like me learned to develop database programs in a network environment with all the locks control that now is almost unnecessary.
Good days...
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I still use Visual SlickEdit - in Brief emulation mode. - Good macro handling, or at least one that my fingers still remember.
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DOS (now COMMAND). LOL.
Progress has killed it, but you are confusing KILLER APP with SPECIFIC APP...
BRIEF => most features available in most editors nowadays (port of emacs, LOL).
Lots 123= Spreadsheet (Still have one)
Oracle = Database = Still have 3..4
But the world has moved a LOT since these tools were created. They were valuable in their time.
Currently I use ActionOutline a thousand times a day. It's windows based, and I am looking to create a web based alternative so I can access it from my phone and other devices.
Does this decrease the Value of an indispensable tool, NO! will I stop using AA at some point. Yep.
But I will replace it with a Cloud Based tool where my data is backed up and stored, and potentially secured in even better ways. Potentially making some aspects shareable with other people, which simply cannot happen the way it works today.
So, of all of those tools you had, if you look back at the tool itself, not the BRAND... Did it just get absorbed into the life and times of other tools?
I used to write batch files. I prefer Python now.
I used to write quick and dirty EXE Files. I can do much in a Javascript window.
We move on, our tools change...
I also had corded drills, and 12V cordless drills. My dad has a crank (hand drill). Things have improved...
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Hm, that would be tough. My first computer with an OS (CP/M) was prePC. I eventually got WordStar on it and to this day, all my IDE's/editors/word processors all use WordStar control sequences for editing. I wrote an AutoHotKey script to translate the WordStar control sequences to the particular editors sequences.
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Zip Chunker Pro (ZCP) so files could fit on floppy disks, pkzip/pkunzip
I actually still have a copy of all three for posterity's sake.
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Yup.
Absolutely yup.
The only relic I have is that the directory I keep all my personal files/documents/everything-else that ms-has created "libraries" for is still the directory that I used all those years ago, whose name is the name of a shareware word processor I used in prehistory.
I've been very glad of that many times, because ms deletes library files, when it feels like it.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I'm sorry to tell you that the best word processor ever, many years ahead of its time, was Word Perfect.
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The Semware Editor. Used since the late 80's. Based on the Wordstar diamond, the reason I still use it. There's an almost-finished Linux version, which I usually use for an editor.
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Yes! Quicken for DOS. Still one of the best programs ever written.
FormerBIOSGuy
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Apparently I'm an exception, I was working with unix professionally before I bought my first home PC. Linux wasn't available yet, but I went over as soon as I heard of it and never looked at a MS OS again except at work.
The thing is, to answer the question what applications of that period do I still use? well, practically ALL OF THEM. A linux user of 2019 (at least one who always prefers CLI) is an animal of almost the same species as a unix user of 1990. A lot of the commands have evolved and became more sophisticated, but basically it's still the same ls, cd, du and some dozens more as 30 years ago. You don't need to learn to drive again with every new car model.
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Are pregnant women body builders?
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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And do they treat the baby as an Invasion of the Body Figure Snatchers?
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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