Yes, some of the tools did, but the ones mentioned here didn't (QBasic, Norton Commander/Utilities, Turbo Pascal/Vision). Norton Utilities did play some intere

Yes, some of the tools did, but the ones mentioned here didn't (QBasic, Norton Commander/Utilities, Turbo Pascal/Vision). Norton Utilities did play some interesting games with modifying the VGA character set in real time, implementing a mouse cursor over the text mode. But it was still 80x25. However, some if the programs adapted to 80x50 if you enabled that mode before (or while?) starting them.