[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...)

[sparklite2]

Or teletype paper tape. We had little tools for punching holes in the medium by hand when the need arose. These were called ‘chicken pluckers.”