I remember Quattro and Lotus 1-2-3
Anyone remember MultiPlan, the original spreadsheet program.
Multiplan is a spreadsheet program developed by Microsoft and introduced in 1982 as a competitor to VisiCalc.
When I wanna feel old I remember punch cards.
I deal with a few “professionals” who aren’t ready to hear that such a tool has been around longer than they’ve been alive. Their excuse for not knowing it disappears.
Claris, nee Apple, Filemaker is 39
elvis presley died 47 years ago...
I never get tired of pointing out that Block Chain (Bitcoin) technology was invented by Microsoft in the 1980s.
Combine a public access website with "Write Once-Read Only" Excel software and - POOF! - Block Chain technology!
First used Excel on the Mac, as a college junior in 1987. It was a revelation, much easier than Lotus 1-2-3.
But honestly I thought the bigger advantage of the Mac at the time was the WYSWIG capability of Word relative to WordPerfect.
You could write engineering equations in WordPerfect but it was painful. Had to know all the codes and couldn’t tell until you printed it if it looked right. Word it was right there on the screen.
We also used a lot of a graphing program called CricketGraph. Probably used this more than Excel as it had superior ability to draw graphs at the time.
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 left off with Lotus 123 and Quattro Pro. Did everything I needed.
Let us not forget Lotus123!…
Let us not forget Lotus123!…
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 made a movie about the 029 Keypunch back in the day. Came out of college in ‘67 and worked in COBOL at American Oil. Still remember seeing card trays in the street gutters when they’d fall off the cart in the rain and be jammed back together and then run on the computer anyway. Then with the Systems Development group at the U of Chicago Computation Center. Later, when I got into computer language design, I had Captain Grace Hopper speak at one of my meetings. She was one of the COBOL inventors. Adored her. I was on the board for Jean Sammet’s History of Computer Languages conference. She was another big COBOL name and a Trekkie like me!
As for FORTRAN, I was making a movie that included John Backus, one of the inventors of FORTRAN, and took B-roll footage crawling around on the floor during one of his group meetings. Adorable man. Husband created a Reduction Language based on John’s reduction languages.
John Backus Group Meeting - IBM Research - 5 July 1989
https://youtu.be/KzBkb-bvNK4
Husband’s paper on Yet Another ALGOL Compiler came out in 1965. He worked on the old MANIAC machine and the 7040. We had punched card trays and one day turnaround. One of the women was an artist and illustrated the tops of the card trays with Medieval Illustrations. Gorgeous. I used that later in my movie. Desperately trying to get husband to record his computer history memories.
This is footage from a Common Lisp Standards Meeting with some of the really big names. I was Secretary of the Group.
X3J13 Common Lisp - Jun 1989 - San Jose - Joseph Blanchard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvU3pJbZBj0
One of the favorite movies I made was about the work of John Cocke, an eccentric and beloved IBM Researcher. He was still terribly ill and everyone wanted to let him know how much they cared about him. Alternated funny stories with the history of his inventions. Husband was asked to follow him around and write papers on his thoughts but refused as he had his own research he wanted to do. Everyone who followed John became famous.
Computer History - John Cocke: A Retrospective by Friends - 1990
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYwd30iWVvw
It doesn’t seem that long ago when I switched from Lotus 1-2-3 to Excel.
I remember building some seriously cool macros in LOTUS 1-2-3, to make my weekly sales reports for our insurance agency compile and print with just a couple keystrokes. The computer for the entire office was kept in a locked room, and we had to sign up to reserve usage, and get the key from the executive secretary.
I used Visicalc, Lotus 1-2-3, and Quattro Pro, before Excel.
I preferred Lotus Improv, but didn’t get to spend too much time with the NeXT Workstation.