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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 🤨 and (b) even a DOS spreadsheet could do everything we learned on the modern spreadsheets, just differently in some cases.

In this demo, we'll compare LibreOffice Calc on Linux and Quattro Pro on DOS.

youtu.be/Z5LXMpcZjEw

@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)

The FreeDOS Project

@goosey @brouhaha

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.