Agenda is a DOS-based personal information manager, designed by Mitch Kapor, Ed Belove and Jerry Kaplan, and marketed by Lotus Software.
Its distinguishing feature was the ability to allow users to input data before the creation of database tables, giving the program flexibility to accommodate the myriad pieces of information a person may need to keep track of.
The computing industry was at first quite taken by its audacious goal and the power it brought to users as they were given a tool that allowed them to structure "real life" information in any way they wished.
Attempts to overcome this through packaging pre-built databases with the program were insufficient to lift sales to adequate levels.
In every database a "When" category is included automatically so that if a date is embedded within the text, it is interpreted and an assignment is made.
Agenda's designers described these core concepts in a 1990 CACM paper ,[1] and patented some of its internal data structures .
Lotus Agenda can still be used on Windows 3.x/9x/ME/2000/XP computers and there are still many active users around the world (see the Pimlist email list on Yahoo groups).