One of my most vivid memories from youth is of the accountant who pulled up to a computer store I was hanging out in and announced to the clerk:
>I want a Visicalc.
After explaining that he would need a computer to run it and that the guy did not yet own one, the clerk then proceeded to put together a purchase which was not quite one (or more! Dual-Disk Drive setup) of every Apple product in the store, incl. a 132 column printer and an 80 col. display.
After ringing it up (for which the guy wrote out a check), I was enlisted to help load things into his black Trans Am and he drove off into the sunset.
The thing which most clearly echoed that after was using Lotus Improv on a NeXT Cube --- these days, I either use Google Docs, or pyspread --- really wish Flexisheet would compile under GNUstep or that there was some nice, elegant, multi-dimensional spreadsheet option with a clear, easy-to-understand formula pane (which was the big advantage of Improv --- all formulae were gathered in one place).
It's hard to over-estimate the tectonic impact the idea of spreadsheet had on the microcomputer scene at the time. Overnight 'programming' came to the masses. Someone with a problem (almost any kind of problem, scientific, financial, statistical, etc) could sit down, and easily start describing sequential flow, numerical manipulation and a ton of other things. It was the second coming of the International Business Machine.
A story that's not complete without Javelin (Plus) [1], a similar program with more longevity, and popularity in its particular niche, but much less fame.
Yeah, ages ago, when doing the composition for an encyclopedia I pointed out its omission, but unfortunately, things were too far along for it to be added.
Almost mentioned that I can't get anyone to buy me a license for Quantrix Financial Modeler either, but that felt a bit on-the-nose.
In the summer of 1981, I was a high school student who had been programming in BASIC for three years. I got a summer job at a company to write some utility programs in BASIC on an Apple II.
One program tracked all the land leasing they did, including location, date of expiration, number of square feet, cost/sqft. Once that was done I did some other programs. I went off to college and brought the program listings (in dot matrix greenbar paper) with me. Oh, I was paid $5/hour, which I just looked up would be $17.81/hour now. Then again, I burned up $5 gas and two hours of driving a day, and $5 at the cafeteria.
Every so often I'd get a call from the guy who used the program asking for a fix or enhancement. He didn't know how to program, and I didn't have a computer, so I'd just dictate "between lines 1280 and 1290, type "1291 IF F2 < 100 THEN 1320:F2=B2+1" or whatever.
I went back to the same job the next summer and they had visicalc. I wrote everything as visicalc spreadsheets on the same Apple II, and taught the user how it all worked. It took 10% of the time and I never got calls again -- the user could figure out how to tweak things.
The main problem was the Apple II could only produce 40 columns of text, which really sucked. You could buy a card which could put out 80x24 but for some reason they didn't want to spend the money even though it seemed like it would have paid for itself in faster navigation.
I had to beg to get the family to buy an Apple ][, but then someone handed me a pirated copy of VisiCalc and my dad wouldn't let it go. He was a recently minted MBA that had spent years grinding with SPSS and VisiCalc was a magical thing.
After that we always had nice printers and lots of storage as he started a consultancy and drove it all from that Apple ][. He even wrote documents in the spreadsheet, he refused all attempts to move to a proper word processor. Lots of fond memories there.
I bought a used VisiCalc box on eBay to run it on my restored Apple II and experience what it was like to use it back in a day on original hardware.
The quality of documentation is something I haven’t see in the last decade or two. It comes in a binder, well organized, thought out with good examples and no expectation of prior knowledge. It’s a joy to read. The only documentation I read thats better than this was the original Apple II Basic manual.
And the best part is it’s all keyboard based. Is there something like vim but for spreadsheets?
Thanks, that looks interesting. It looks more like a data grid, but anything that has keyboard shortcuts to work with data is awesome. I’ll give it a try.
Author here. Yes, I’m glad someone agrees with my assessment on the documentation quality. It pulls off a pretty amazing hat-trick, considering it was the first exposure anyone had with such a program.
`sc` is the only option I’m aware of that is like a “spreadsheet vim” though there are likely others.
Interestingly enough, the original name of sc was . . .
wait for it . . .
vc
One of the highlights of my work in tech was meeting someone I had read about in many computing history books, Bob Frankston, who dropped in for the Web 1.0 Conf at MIT Media Lab years ago. I was indifferent to the coffee choice at the event so I grabbed light toast, but he preferred dark roast coffee and politely but intently requested dark roast, so the next day I made sure we had both. That's where I learned that I preferred it too and I've been drinking dark roast ever since. Thanks Bob.
I wish I was in the room when he tried to demo Visicalc to the Atari developers, IIRC, the Atari documentary implied that a lot of them showed up to the demo stoned and were perhaps a little confused why they were being shown the demo.
Sometimes I wonder if instead of struggling with office suites, I'd be better off running VisiCalc in an emulator. Low memory usage, high portability, and you know they're not going to change the UI on you.
It depends upon your needs, but the over simplified answer is: probably not.
I'm not talking about the over all design philosophy behind such old software. It may be better for getting things done in terms of the interface and, as you mentioned, there's high portability. By portability, I assume you mean you can run it on anything that has an emulator for it.
The trouble is how tied to the hardware it was. For example: 80 column mode was limited to particular video cards, and support didn't include the 80 column support found on later Apple II's. Have extra memory (such as an emulated 128 kB Apple IIe, so again were talking about very common hardware)? Well, you're stuck to the 64 kB (or less) of an Apple II or II+. Given that you have to restart the program to reclaim unused memory, this may be a bigger deal than anticipated.
Such old software is finicky. Even Lotus 1-2-3 on a PC emulator would have its quirks, albeit not to the same extreme.
Author here.
I address data portability in a step-by-step process in the blog post. Long story short, it’s too much hassle while still being imperfect. If data sharing is important, it’s not a good choice. If you’re content to build a little spreadsheet that exists solely within the VisiCalc and VisiClone world, then it might suffice. I suspect the average user has higher baseline expectations than VisiCalc can deliver. You need to really try it out yourself (Dan Bricklin has the 80-column DOS version for free on his site) and see what it lacks firsthand.
I guess whichever has the most parseable format and plays nice with virtual printer drivers. And when sharing a spreadsheet with someone, you can share the entire spreadsheet application software, no incompatibilities :)
Readit News
>I want a Visicalc.
After explaining that he would need a computer to run it and that the guy did not yet own one, the clerk then proceeded to put together a purchase which was not quite one (or more! Dual-Disk Drive setup) of every Apple product in the store, incl. a 132 column printer and an 80 col. display.
After ringing it up (for which the guy wrote out a check), I was enlisted to help load things into his black Trans Am and he drove off into the sunset.
The thing which most clearly echoed that after was using Lotus Improv on a NeXT Cube --- these days, I either use Google Docs, or pyspread --- really wish Flexisheet would compile under GNUstep or that there was some nice, elegant, multi-dimensional spreadsheet option with a clear, easy-to-understand formula pane (which was the big advantage of Improv --- all formulae were gathered in one place).
Being able to see values recalculated instantly was earthshattering in a way that even the Internet really wasn't.
A story that's not complete without Javelin (Plus) [1], a similar program with more longevity, and popularity in its particular niche, but much less fame.
1. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javelin_Software]
Almost mentioned that I can't get anyone to buy me a license for Quantrix Financial Modeler either, but that felt a bit on-the-nose.
One program tracked all the land leasing they did, including location, date of expiration, number of square feet, cost/sqft. Once that was done I did some other programs. I went off to college and brought the program listings (in dot matrix greenbar paper) with me. Oh, I was paid $5/hour, which I just looked up would be $17.81/hour now. Then again, I burned up $5 gas and two hours of driving a day, and $5 at the cafeteria.
Every so often I'd get a call from the guy who used the program asking for a fix or enhancement. He didn't know how to program, and I didn't have a computer, so I'd just dictate "between lines 1280 and 1290, type "1291 IF F2 < 100 THEN 1320:F2=B2+1" or whatever.
I went back to the same job the next summer and they had visicalc. I wrote everything as visicalc spreadsheets on the same Apple II, and taught the user how it all worked. It took 10% of the time and I never got calls again -- the user could figure out how to tweak things.
The main problem was the Apple II could only produce 40 columns of text, which really sucked. You could buy a card which could put out 80x24 but for some reason they didn't want to spend the money even though it seemed like it would have paid for itself in faster navigation.
- Steve Jobs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npqD602G90o
After that we always had nice printers and lots of storage as he started a consultancy and drove it all from that Apple ][. He even wrote documents in the spreadsheet, he refused all attempts to move to a proper word processor. Lots of fond memories there.
The quality of documentation is something I haven’t see in the last decade or two. It comes in a binder, well organized, thought out with good examples and no expectation of prior knowledge. It’s a joy to read. The only documentation I read thats better than this was the original Apple II Basic manual.
And the best part is it’s all keyboard based. Is there something like vim but for spreadsheets?
`sc` is the only option I’m aware of that is like a “spreadsheet vim” though there are likely others.
Interestingly enough, the original name of sc was . . . wait for it . . . vc
I wish I was in the room when he tried to demo Visicalc to the Atari developers, IIRC, the Atari documentary implied that a lot of them showed up to the demo stoned and were perhaps a little confused why they were being shown the demo.
I'm not talking about the over all design philosophy behind such old software. It may be better for getting things done in terms of the interface and, as you mentioned, there's high portability. By portability, I assume you mean you can run it on anything that has an emulator for it.
The trouble is how tied to the hardware it was. For example: 80 column mode was limited to particular video cards, and support didn't include the 80 column support found on later Apple II's. Have extra memory (such as an emulated 128 kB Apple IIe, so again were talking about very common hardware)? Well, you're stuck to the 64 kB (or less) of an Apple II or II+. Given that you have to restart the program to reclaim unused memory, this may be a bigger deal than anticipated.
Such old software is finicky. Even Lotus 1-2-3 on a PC emulator would have its quirks, albeit not to the same extreme.
https://github.com/n-t-roff/sc (active fork)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sc_(spreadsheet_calculator)
https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/resolute/en/man1/sc-im....
Installable on mac and unix as ‘sc-im’
WriteNow on a Quadra 950 is very fast, I don't have a spreadsheet application from the same era.