[taxcontrol]

One of the best advice comments that I have ever received:

Learn how to be lazy

What was meant was to learn it once, and get a computer to do the repetitive work.

[Larry Lucido]

These programs put hundreds of thousands of accounting clerks out of work.

Maybe we can put them back to work separating out carbon molecules from the air.

[billorites]

VisiCalc was old hat by the time I got my Kaypro II in 1983.

I felt like King of the World writing stat programs with CalcStar.

[NonValueAdded]

I preferred Multiplan back in the day. The spreadsheet certainly was a game-changer. And a spreadsheet error eas simply automating a clerical error. The difference was that what is printed on greenbar was gospel.

And the cautionary tale is that education is soooo important. Remember Øbama’s smart meter push? Meter-reader jobs vanished off the face of the economy. If you were unskilled, you were screwed. This is the future.

[dhs12345]

Just my opinion, but the spreadsheet is one of best software programs of all time. I use it many times every day.

[moovova]

AppleWorks spreadsheet for the Apple IIc was my intro to the computerized spreadsheet world. Never looked back (to the paper/pencil version).

[MayflowerMadam]

I loved Lotus, but had to transition to Excel.

[Yo-Yo]

A more important lesson in all of this? First to market doesn't guarantee dominance of the market.

Where's VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3 today?

Where's WordPerfect and WordStar today?

[fruser1]

The purpose of computers was to put clerks out of work.

Thanks to the income tax, gov folks realized early that in order to do everybody’s taxes, the number of clerks required would grow to equal the number of people in the country. A computing machine was needed and the Eniac was born.

[Right Wing Assault]

Poorly written article by Tim Harford that could have been more interesting. He left out Bob Frankston. And what ever happened to Bricklin. Yeah, he has a website. Could have mentioned bricklin.com/log. It mentioned the Jennifer Unit but didn't think it was interesting to show an example of what it does.

[Swordmaker]

You have to get several paragraphs into the article to learn that the first spreadsheet program, VisiCalc, was written for the Apple II computer.

“So he wrote a program for the new Apple II personal computer: an electronic spreadsheet.

His friend Bob Frankston helped him sharpen up the software - and, on 17 October 1979, VisiCalc went on sale.

Spreadsheets were only later ported to IBM and its clones. —PING!

Apple II and the
First Computeriszed Spreadsheet Ping!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[Swordmaker]

WHAT? You mean the first killer app was not Freecell? You could have fooled a hell of a lot of office workers.

[TXnMA]

Back in the late 70s, at Texas Instruments, there was a scientist we nicknamed "Barefoot Joe" (because of his penchant for wearing sandals sans socks). The guy became an self-annointed "evangelist" for VisiCalc -- because he comprehended the awesome power of a program that made the contents of one cell a function of numerous other cells -- many of which were, themselves, complex functions of other cells.

Of course, those functions need not be accounting functions, they could be the most complex of scientific and/or engineering functions!! And, changing the value of a single cell could be calculated into the output of any number of "dependent cells...

For those of us scientists/engineers who comprehended what Joe was saying, we followed his lead and moved into a totally new realm of computational power!

I must admit, VisiCalc forever expanded my concept of the accessible, practical power of computational mathematics -- right in the hands of the end user. (No stacks of punch cards needed...)

[catnipman]

i still remember the awe i felt when i first saw Excel on a Macintosh ... i was totally blown away and instantly recognized the revolution GUI programs were going to spawn ...

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I bought VisiCalc early on to use on our Apple 2. Then Lotus 1-2-3 was introduced and I thought “This is going nowhere. They won’t be able to knock off Visicalc.”

I switched to Lotus 1-2-3.

Then Microsoft Excel was introduced and I thought “This is going nowhere. They won’t be able to knock off Lotus 1-2-3.”

If you need investment advice, send me a FReepMail. ;>)

[SamAdams76]

I took accounting classes in school during the late 1970s and worked with graph paper, graduating to ledgers sheets like you see here. I really liked the old way of keeping the books. You had to concentrate on what you were doing because making mistakes was painful - sometimes taking hours to correct. Had to learn to write small and neatly as well.

But it still gives me a thrill looking at those old ledger sheets. I used to go into stationary stores and my heart would beat fast as I saw all the various sheets on display. To me, they were items of beauty.I wanted to buy all of them along with boxes of pencils and erasers!

The first electronic spreadsheet I used was Multiplan and it came with a heavy set of manuals that weighed about 15 pounds and fit into a large cardboard sleeve. Moved up to Quattro Pro and finally to Excel where I still am today.

I'm pretty good with Excel but I think I only use about 10-15% of the available tools and features. There's so much of Excel I still don't know.