Hi folks
messing about today with all the things EXCEL (/ other spreadsheets) can do I couldn't believe these things were developed as recently as 1978 with a program called VisiCalc.
Today a lot of stuff would be utterly unthinkable without spreadsheets.
Anyway enjoy this little bit from the BBC.
How computing's first 'killer app' changed everything - BBC News
Cheers
jimbo
Well I assume you were not old enough to use VisiCalc, but it was the Cats Meow back then. It always amazed me that M$ was able to do an end run around them and I believe if it wasn't for Lotus 123, M$ would of been way late to the parade. The big problem was it needed to be portable, but then it couldn't make use new features on ported to hardware. They actually owned the market back then. First was available on Apple II, it moved quickly to the IBM PC when it was announced. I used it for years, but had to switch to Lotus for the hardware features.
I learnt to use Ability Plus which was a group of word processor and spreadsheet software for DOS.
There was an article a few years ago about a guy who sold plants from his allotment as a cottage industry, and his ancient IBM pc had finally failed and it turned out he was still using a VisiCalc spreadsheet to record his outgoings and incomes for the state UK financial deprivation moguls (aka taxman).
He was regarded as the last person alive to be still using it.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it - lol.
Actually 1962 was when the first Electronic Spreadsheet came about. 1961Richard Mattessich conceived the idea for the Electronic Spreadsheet. 1970 AutoPlan was designed as a personal Electronic Spreadsheet. 1979 was when VisiCalc was officially released, not 1978. Don Bricklen conceived the idea for a Electronic Spreadsheet for Personal Computing in 1978.
Brief History of Spreadsheets, v. 3.6
History of Computers and Computing, Birth of the modern computer, Software history, VisiCalc of Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston
VisiCalc is alive and well in the Vintage Computing sector.
High-Tech Rebel - The New York Times
I wish I had had a PC and spreadsheet in the early 70s at university. I must have spent hundreds of hours manually analysing experimental data and plotting graphs - usually repeated several times due to mistakes! We were only allowed to use slide rues in exams.
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