If you used a computer at school during the 1980s or early 1990s, there’s likely a handful of software titles that you can still recognize today, such as The Oregon Trail, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. The companies behind these iconic programs once competed in a market that featured dozens of small firms jockeying for sales at a time when personal computers were still a relatively new concept for most consumers. And as the PC slowly became a mass-market consumer electronics product in the 1990s, the software industry started to undergo its own rapid consolidation and contraction.

Gregg Williams, writing about the introduction of the Apple Lisa for the February 1983 issue of Byte Magazine, noted that when it came to a choice of an input device to use with the new computer’s graphical interface, the designers “passed over such devices as light pens and touch-sensitive video panels in favor of the mouse, a pointing device used in several Xerox PARC machines.”

Apple’s main refinement–not necessarily an improvement–to the PARC mouse design was only providing a single button. According to Williams, “Apple broke with the conventional wisdom of two- and three-button mice after user tests indicated the people aren’t always sure which button to push on a multi-button mouse.”

Gavilan Computer Corporation made headlines in early 1983 when it announced its Mobile Computer, a nine-pound, battery-powered Intel 8088 PC with an 8-line LCD screen, full-sized typewriter keyboard, and a “solid state mouse” that was a precursor to the modern trackpad. Founded by a former CEO of Zilog and backed by $31 million in venture capital, Gavilan was poised to be the next big thing in personal computing. Sadly, it wasn’t, and in October 1984, Gavilan filed for bankruptcy and quickly disappeared, memorialized by a brief report in an early 1985 Computer Chronicles episode.

Perhaps IBM’s most important contribution to the development of the personal computer was pushing graphics standards forward. Early microcomputers tended to output only text characters. And those machines that did implement some form of bitmap graphics, such as Steve Wozniak’s Apple II, did so without any eye towards establishing an industry-wide standard.

That changed with the introduction of the Intel 8088-based IBM Personal Computer in 1981. IBM developed two graphics cards–the Monochrome Display Adapter and the Color Graphics Adapter (CGA)–for use with its PC. The CGA card could output 16-color bitmap graphics with a resolution of 160-by-100 pixels, although in practice most programs used a higher-resolution 320-by-200 mode that only displayed 4 colors.

In early 1987, Apple planned to publish a database management program called Silver Surfer, which was developed by Acius. This prompted blowback from a number of third-party Macintosh developers, who felt that Apple should “stick to hardware” and leave the software to them. Unlike the Apple of today, then-CEO John Sculley’s company in 1987 could only go so far to antagonize the third-party developers necessary to keep the Macintosh platform viable. So Apple abandoned plans to publish Silver Surfer under its own label and returned the rights to Acius, who released the database under the name 4th Dimension.

October 1983 marked the 40th anniversary of the debut of Computer Chronicles as a nationally televised program on PBS stations in the United States. To celebrate, I spoke for more than three hours with Karl Kuras, creator and principal host of the Video Game Newsoom Time Machine, where we discussed the origins of Chronicles and the show’s early history. Since 2018, Kuras’ podcast has gone month-by-month through the key news headlines in the arcade, home video game, and computer game industries from 30 and 40 years ago (and often beyond.) He also publishes interviews with industry figures and other individuals, such as myself, who conduct research into the history of technology.

How many applications is your computer running right now? If the answer is more than one, then you’re already well ahead of most personal computer of the 1980s. Early microcomputer operating systems like CP/M and MS-DOS could only run a single application at a time. There were certain hacks to try and get around this limit–such as RAM-resident software–but the typical 8- or 16-bit PC lacked the processing power to multitask even if the operating system could technically support it.

Kate Willaert is a video game historian and essayist. She recently released part one in a series of video essays on the origins of Nintendo’s famed mascot Mario. This first video looks at how Mario’s video game debut in the 1981 arcade hit Donkey Kong started out as licensed game based on the syndicated comic strip character “Popeye.”

In August 1987, Apple announced HyperCard, a new type of middleware for the Macintosh that made it possible for anyone to create a polished application combining text, graphics, and hyperlinks. One of the first companies to embrace HyperCard was Activision, the well-known game publisher, which released Focal Point and Business Class, two business productivity tools created by Danny Goodman, who also authored the first definitive book on HyperCard.

But why would a company known for games like Pitfall! on the Atari VCS and Ghostbusters on the Commodore 64 get into business software for the Macintosh? The answer to that question requires looking back at the early history of Activision and the company’s struggles to stay afloat after the collapse of its original home video game cartridge business.

Kevin Bunch is perhaps the world’s foremost historian of the Atari VCS–also known as the Atari 2600–and other 1970s home video game consoles. Since 2017, Bunch has produced Atari Archive, a series of videos available on YouTube that document the history of every VCS game in release order. More recently, Bunch authored the first in a series of books based on his video series, Atari Archive Vol. 1: 1977-1978 (Press Run, $34.99), which chronicles the first 20 games released for the system and provides additional information on Atari’s competitors during this time period, including Fairchild Semiconductor, Magnavox, and RCA.