Personal Composer, the world's first music/MIDI software for a desktop computer, was written by Jim Miller, who set up for business in his garage in 1983. Jim advanced the DOS-based program through several releases, and was working on a Windows version at the time of his death in 1991.

Dennis James, a musician and programmer, in 1988 began to develop a music program for Windows. When his software was substantially finished, he joined Susan Miller, widow of Jim and owner of Personal Composer, Inc., in a joint venture. The Windows version was first released in late 1993. Today the program is recognized by its users as the easiest to learn and use of all the full-featured music notation products.