The PC1640 was sufficiently powerful to run major office software of the late 1980s and early 1990s: WordPerfect 5.1, Microsoft Word 4/5 for DOS, Lotus 1-2-3, Matlab, dBase III+, and Ashton-Tate's Framework II. It shipped with Digital Research's GEM as a graphical shell and could also run GEOS Ensemble (up to v2.1) and Microsoft Windows up to 3.0 in real mode. Games like The Secret of Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, and Prince of Persia all ran on the 8086 CPU.