Excel 2 wasn't pretty, but it was prettier than 1-2-3 – click to enlarge
Posted on 10/22/2024 10:16:20 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Microsoft Excel, the true successor to the throne of COBOL. Version 1.0 was released on the last day of September 1985, four decades ago.
Since the original US English version of Windows 1.0 went to manufacturing at the end of November that year, this means that the default spreadsheet for Microsoft Windows is itself older than Windows. (The European version of Windows didn't appear until May 1986, but that doesn't really matter, nobody cared about it either.)
Excel 2 wasn't pretty, but it was prettier than 1-2-3 – click to enlarge
As the old joke goes, like an "incel", it still incorrectly assumes what constitutes a date, to the vexation of geneticists – and their eventual surrender.
Yes, Excel 1 was a Mac application, and originally a Mac-only application. The first Windows version only followed a few years later, when in 1987 Microsoft ported Excel 2 to Windows.
The tender, greenhorn Reg FOSS desk supported it for multiple customers on Windows 2. Even though Windows 2 itself was a bit of a joke, Excel was a compelling enough app that customers tolerated it just to get a graphical spreadsheet, and it even shipped with a copy of Runtime Windows, a special, heavily cut-down version of Windows 2 with no shell, which let you execute a Windows application from DOS. It loaded enough of Windows to start the app as the sole UI, and when you quit the app, it exited back to DOS again.
Experience the raw power of two files at once, side by side – click to enlarge
Excel didn't pioneer the market. Spreadsheets have been the key tool of the microcomputer industry for pretty much as long as there has been a microcomputer industry. Arguably, the first one was VisiCalc, which is the app that made Apple's initial fortune by selling an awful lot of Apple II computers. According to Steve Jobs, anyway. (Yes, we did slightly miss Spreadsheet Day. Feel free to complain in the comments.)
Then came IBM's PC, imitating one key element of the Apple II by incorporating lots of internal expansion slots, and thus inspiring a famous Apple advertisement.
Apple Wall Street Journal advertisement – click to enlarge
There was a version of VisiCalc for the new IBM operating system, MS-DOS 1.0, and thanks to co-creator Dan Bricklin you can download it for free, all 27 KB of it. It didn't take full advantage of the machine's hardware, though, and remained nearly as limited as its eight-bit Apple forebear.
That opening was exploited by Lotus with 1-2-3, which, if you're determined enough, you can run under DOSBox. Or, of course, thanks to Tavis Ormandy, run it natively on Linux instead. For its time, it was very powerful. The name came from the way it integrated number-crunching, extremely basic database facilities (you could define ranges and search or sort), and graphing.
It also bypassed MS-DOS and hit the metal of the IBM PC directly for better performance. That had multiple side effects. As well as selling a lot of IBM PCs, 1-2-3's stringent compatibility requirements also led to the creation and flourishing of the clone industry. And, thrown in, the Lotus-Intel-Microsoft specification for Expanded Memory – the only way to access more than 640 KB from MS-DOS on the early 8088 and 8086 PCs.
A brief play with 1-2-3 for DOS – or Linux – will effectively demonstrate why Excel rapidly displaced it. Excel was dramatically easier to understand and use, and although there were other graphical spreadsheet programs out there – you can still buy Quattro Pro – Excel got in early and established its dominance. Forty years later, Excel formulas effectively constitute the world's most widely used programming language.
IBM discontinued Smartsuite a decade ago, including the final release of 1-2-3 for Windows. Like WordPerfect, after a rocky start (and the wasted effort of OS/2 versions), it developed into a perfectly serviceable Windows app… but too little, too late.
Downloadable CD images can be found in a few places out there, and in response to a reader query, we tried it a couple of years ago and it installs and runs fine on Windows 11, except for online help.
Lotus also had a far more radical spreadsheet, the multidimensional Improv, billed as Spreadsheets Done Right. It started out on the NeXT Computer, then was successfully translated to Windows… where it flopped. I evaluated version 1.0 for Windows for my then employer, and it was a vision of a smarter future – but if you already knew how to navigate the conventional 1970s-style rectangular grid of cells, it was too late. The mental damage was already done.
Excel, meanwhile, will still cost you a few hundred bucks, of course. That may be the best tribute to its staying power. ®
I used Word Perfect on MS Dos to print receipts on a dot matrix printer. They were the pre-printed versions with white/pink/yellow copies that could either be filled in by hand or done with a word processor. You could order them from a printing place with your logo printed in the corner but I just set it up for the dot matrix to fill that in with company name, address, phone. It was a little tricky to get everything lined up to print inside the boxes but I had fun.
I purchased a Zenith 8 Bit CPM, 16 Bit DOS dual processor with a 5 Meg hard drive in 1982.
I used it, with Multiplan in my CPA firm. Cost me $2,500 just to replace the 5 Meg hard drive. Had to park the heads after each use.
That was the first one after the Apple crap. Used the Apple 2e at the university and hated it.
I left off with Lotus 123 and Quattro Pro. Did everything I needed.
No thank you, I don’t any help in that department. LOL!!!!!
Let us not forget Lotus123!…
Let us not forget Lotus123!…
I remember Quattro.
It had the best memory management.
Eventually Microsoft kept their new format secret and not available for use by other vendors, and we had to switch to Excel to be compatible.
“When I wanna feel old I remember punch cards.”
IBM had some amazing machines that processed punch cards. Their keypunch had the best keyboard I’ve ever used. Their fastest sorter could do 2000 cards per minute.
Regarding Excel on the MAC, all of the Office products were and are produced by Microsoft, and Apple has incorporated them into their products.
I was given the original disks for the first few versions from my Dad. They are still sealed and in original packaging.
I actually saw a manager use Excel for typing memos. He thought it was really great to use a cell on the right side to put a date on it.
“””I also remember Visicalc and Lotus 123.”””
Thanks for reminding me. And how can anyone forget ‘real’ floppy disks.
But I'm almost to the point where I don't need Windows software either, except for when I need to run my older Acrobat 10 and Photoshop CS5 software. That's really all I need it for. So when the time comes, I'll program me up a Linux disk and tri-boot my systems. Linux will (once again) be my primary go-to O/S and my Windows O/S's will be used very sparingly.
A word of caution with the newer Linux O/S's, especially Mint 22. I found out (the hard way) that Linux will wipe the bootdisk.ini and make Windows inaccessible if you try to program it in side-by-side with Windows. So if anyone plans on dual-booting Windows and Linux like me, take care not to lose your Windows O/S in the process. It can be done but it takes some tinkering.
Those may be worth something.
When I was young, I put a heathkit together.
You reprogrammed it by re-wiring it.
Old? I remember flipping switches back in 1965!
He gave me a boatload of software recently that he has safely tucked away for decades. I always told him that I wanted him to give it to me someday. My son (22) told me the value and he was shocked. +$15k for most all of the software.
Lotus 123, Express, Symphony, etc.
All good programs at that time.
Oh, Lotus Organizer.
I ran VisiCalc on an Apple II
Thanks for the warning. I don't plan to dual-boot my machines. I've seen too much go wrong with that setup, even though many are successful. I want Windows 10 for some apps that I don't have a substitute for in Linux. The long pole in the tent will be software like TurboTax. It isn't available for Linux, and they won't release it in the future for Windows 10 (like they did with Windows 7 when it was EOL). And I refuse to do cloud-base tax filing.
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