Posted on 11/26/2017 9:24:47 PM PST by dayglored
Launched a million business plans, sank Lotus...
Thirty is a ripe old age, maybe older than a good chunk of Register readers. Even for those of you for whom Excel is a spring chicken, how many applications or even operating systems are you still using of a similar age outside the Office suite?
Is Windows 10 the same OS as Windows 2.0? Is that still your grandfather's axe, now that you have replaced the head and your father replaced the handle?
Microsoft's legendary spreadsheet software was born in November 1987. Note to both of you Apple-non-fanbois out there, there was no V1.x for Windows: Excel was first released for the Mac. When ported to Windows 2.x the versions for both OSes were synced at 2.0.
Steve Jobs said that an Excel forerunner, VisiCalc, was: “What propelled the Apple II to the success it achieved,” and made Apple the company into the monster that it became, in spite of spreadsheets being the least cool app ever. Compare and contrast with 1987's real cool tech such as the boombox, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and the T800 Transputer.
Spreadsheets can do amazing things, much more than just adding up columns of numbers: what-if business modelling, field data collection, data charting, and even live trading in the City, but like all good tools they can be used badly. Fumble-fingered formulae and worse references than a fraudster applying to run a bank.
[Lots more at the link...]
(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.co.uk ...
Lotus 123 was my introduction to the 80’s.
I personally believe the introduction of the spreadsheet in the mid 80’s contributed greatly to the Wall-Street LBO and takeover boom of the 2nd half of that decade.
It was a brand new phenomenon, analysts being able to run many, various, complex financial and operating scenarios extremely quickly.
I remember VisiCalc, Supercalc, and Lotus 123 as well as Quattro Pro.
When I am in a hurry to do a spreadsheet, I call up Excel 97. Same with Word 97 when I need a word-processor. They are both easier to use than the convoluted ribbon menu in the versions that come with later Windows.
And because Microsoft no longer cares about it, installing it over and over with the same key on newer machines is a no-brainer.
I hate the ribbon. The old Office is a win-win.
Recall the the old Wordstar / Calcstar duo? Best thing running on CP/M at the time.
I learned Lotus for VAX and VMS, on company time and at my leisure. To occupy my brain as I got proficient at coding, I started themeing the range names so that someone reading the code would find a Star Trek section, an erotic section, and various other conceits. Bear in mind, I was a quality control supervisor whose job description didn’t include programming. LOL
Eventually, over the years, I created a program using Visual Basic for Applications that covered the operations of a photo lab from chemistry usage, silver recovery, and inventory control. A technical guy from Fuji in Japan paid us a visit and was impressed with the program. I gave him a CD of it to take back to Japan. A week later I got a flask of macadamia nuts from them. It was neat.
With the program, I saved the lab over a hundred thousand dollars a year in chemical costs, and of course got none of it. AAMOF, when Fuji closed the lab, my request to transfer to another lab was accompanied by the comment that I was not a team player. heh. As if anyone knew enough about what I was doing to form a ‘team.’
What was your favorite and best?
Thirty is not middle aged
“Thirty is not middle aged”
So true. Middle age starts around 45.
American health despite things like obesity is VERY good in general. Physiologically people here are younger than before.
(And WITHOUT Obamacare, mind ya...)
Since living to ninety seems doable for the most of us, then forty-five is precisely mid-life. However, this is no guarantee that your mid-life crisis will wait that long.
I ran WordStar, SuperCalc, dBase II, and MS BASIC on an Osborne with CP/M. When I went over to MS-DOS, I switched to Word Perfect, Quattro Pro, Paradox, and Turbo Pascal. Then came Windows with MS Office, C and C#. Now, I use a Mac with MS Office and Swift.
I liked Quattro Pro.
Yes, I would say between 45 and 50 is pretty accurate for the beginning of middle-aged.
As a side note, the middle-age “crisis” is not so much the individual changing. But rather it is the loss of grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents...in other words, relationships we have had since birth suddenly disappear. Our whole structure of life is leaving. That is the “crisis,” and the beginning of major changes in an individual’s life. Things will never be the same.
Some lose their parents very early in life. But for the majority, those changes begin around the age of 45 and up. It’s a difficult time, but we learn to lean even more on the Lord for comfort and peace.
Excel is not any good for working with dates prior to 1900.
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