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VisiCalc Turns 25, Creators Interviewed
Xaroth writes "It's hard to believe that it's already been 25 years since the release of one of the world's first 'killer apps.' 1979 saw the creation of VisiCalc, the first microcomputer-based spreadsheet and the single application that launched widespread computer use among businesses.
To remember this event, PC World has published portions of interviews with the three co-creators of the modern spreadsheet: Dan Bricklin, Bob Frankston, and Dan Fylstra. Alternately, check out the Software History website for more information on this and other historical bits."
Run it yourself!
I bet there's a Linux one floating around out there, I guess I'll try to WINE this one.
I dont think the article mentioned this, but VisiCalc was also the first (known) enterprise app to be ported from the Apple OS to a *Nix based system.
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Not to be a flaimbait or anything, but I think that your completely wrong about Visicalc. Computers aren't designed to mimic things from the real world. Many good programs don't. The spreadsheet is productive, very. In fact, it doesn't mimic paper+calc+pencil for doing banking, it superceeds it.
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It seems to work under Dosemu and Freedos (Dos emulation for Linux). WINE is overkill, since it doesn't use any Windows stuff.
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I agree with you, but we're both probably spreadsheet experts. Have you ever seen a user with only basic training, and a limited understanding of math? They know certain things are possible (because they saw us do them) but to them the spreadsheet is not intuitive. To us they are. Once you grasp relative v absolute references (and cell naming) you are usually on your way to being unstoppable.
One thing that would be nice would be a sheet that had a different display for user input data and calc'd data (I have my own shorthand but wouldn't it be nice if the sheet just formatted them automatically?
My employer spend millions of dollars redesigning their database input and report forms so they would be the same as the old mainframe systems. Dumb to us, but most users were rendered helpless by something different, even if it was more efficient. Something that looks like what a user is comfortable with is sometimes more useful than a powerful, flexible, but different tool.
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And yet VisiCalc was designed to mimic a real-world operation. IIRC, industrial planners used to have large blackboards divided into grids and each square in the grid could hold a number or an equation. When a number was changed in one square, all the dependent squares had to be recalculated. Of course, the concern was that something had been missed. I believe Bricklin heard one of his professors describe this process and chose it as his model for what eventually became VisiCalc.
I think I read this in Cringely's Accidental Empires.