<i>> So both the 70s and the 90s were great decades for computing. Not sure what happened in the 80s</i><p>Microsoft.<p>- MS-DOS: 1981<p>- Word: 1983<p>- Windows: 1985<p>- Excel: 1985<p>- Word for Windows: 1989<p>- Office: 1990<p>If your view of computing history is through *nix-alike or Mac lenses the '80s are going to look pretty barren, because the '80s were when Microsoft was busy driving both those markets into nearly-complete irrelevance.