“On Thursday I wrote a piece about MacWrite and MacPaint, two pieces of software that influenced much if not all the software that followed. There are many other examples of seminal software products. In most cases, the products are not the first of its kind, as MacWrite was not the first word processor, but for whatever reason, put enough of the pieces together to lead the way to the future. It's not always obvious in the moment, but with the benefit of hindsight we can see.”

http://threads2.scripting.com/2013/january/whatOtherSoftwareWasInfluential

http://developers.slashdot.org/story/13/01/27/2140237/what-early-software-was-influential-enough-to-deserve-acclaim

“Xerox Bravo [wikipedia.org] (1974), Xerox Gypsy [wikipedia.org] (1975), and Xerox Markup [toastytech.com] (not sure of exact year, in the vicinity). As a general rule, whatever you can think of, PARC had it ten years earlier. By the late eighties they were working on a PDA/tablet/smart surface, touch-driven ecosystem.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bravo_(software)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy_(software)

http://toastytech.com/guis/altodraw.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard