So I also teach this university course about the history of technology, where students also learn how to use spreadsheets.
This semester, some of my students were surprised to learn that (a) spreadsheets existed before Windows
In this demo, we'll compare LibreOffice Calc on Linux and Quattro Pro on DOS.
@freedosproject
"just differently in some cases"
...and better in some cases
@freedosproject Spreadsheet programs not only predated Windows, they predated the IBM PC.
@brouhaha Yes! I highlighted that to my students and they were surprised
First desktop spreadsheet: VisiCalc on Apple II (1979)
First computer spreadsheet program: LANPAR (1969)
@freedosproject @brouhaha and then there's the classic Invisicalc
Puts up a blank screen so nothing will distract you while you do the calculations in your head
@hyc @freedosproject @brouhaha CE Software from before the Mac! I had no idea about them then.
@hyc @freedosproject @brouhaha IIRC, someone used to sell a 0-byte executable for the CP/M that would rerun the last used program without having to reload it from disk. Some customers felt they had been cheated although the program did its job. (I can't find the story anymore.)
I did not know this. Cool!
It gets better with background: At the time, say you wanted a change in your company's budget software, it would take months to implement on the mainframe (programming, etc)
For those who could get it, LANPAR was huge because you could make your own budget plan in a weekend.
When VC came out, loads of companies bought Apple II computers just to run VisiCalc. Because now you could make your own budget plan in an afternoon.
@freedosproject Few years ago I experimented a bit with Visicalc for DOS ( http://www.bricklin.com/history/vcexecutable.htm) and I was so surprised how mature software it was! It would easily address the most of the things I need from spreadsheets even today.
@trilobyte It's amazing that VisoCalc invented many of the standards that continue today, especially A1 addressing.
When I show my students the history of spreadsheets, I start with VisiCalc.
But VisiCalc can't do forward referencing. I'll show that in the next video. That's why there was the recalc key shortcut.
We take fwd ref for granted today, not there in VisiCalc. (To be fair, it would have been a big performance problem on the Apple II.)
@clacke Yes, exactly. VisiCalc couldn't do it, you had to tap the
Lotus 123 could do it.
LANPAR did it by default in 1969, ten years before VisiCalc, but it was basically a compiler so that's not surprising.
@freedosproject About 13 years ago a client bought a new high-end workstation (i7, 16 GB RAM, SSD). He also wanted to be able to still run his old QuattroPro for DOS on it, and to print from it. I set him up with DOSBox-X to do that.