Interview With Spreadsheet Creator

Gammu writes "Dan Bricklin helped create one of the most successful computer metaphors of all time, and he never got rich. He, and another engineer, started Personal Software to create the computer spreadsheet VisiCalc, which established the Apple II as the standard microcomputer for small businesses and attracted the attention of IBM to the market. Josh Coventry recently interviewed Bricklin about VisiCalc and his newer projects, including a Wiki-style spreadsheet." WikiCalc was discussed back in February on Slashdot and reviewed by NewsForge in March. NewsForge and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.

Comments

A dollar for the poor man

[phantomcircuit]

he didn't get rich from such a famous piece of industry starting software?

lets give him a dollar

check out Numbler

[harshaw]

The source and engine are also available for Numbler, a collaborate spreadsheet similar to google spreadsheet.

you can get the source and play with it at http://code.google.com/p/numbler/. We haven't made a formal announcement of this yet so the docs are still quite raw.

VisiCalc Executable for the IBM PC

[bigberk]

I loved this... his web site includes a downloadable VisiCalc binary from 1981. It's 27 KB large (smaller than most web images, he points out) and it's a pretty powerful piece of software. Still runs on my modern dual core system, talk about longevity. Wow. All the Flash and Visual Basic in the world can't make me forget how awesome and elegant some older software is. I started out by writing in assembler myself

Re:VisiCalc Executable for the IBM PC

[Blakey Rat]

Not to diminish your post, but from my understanding Visicalc is one of the applications Microsoft uses as a baseline for backwards-compatibility testing. The fact that it still runs in 2006 is more a testament to the efforts of OS designers than the original program-- the original program only had to follow all the published specs of the time.

Re:VisiCalc Executable for the IBM PC

[timeOday]

What, 25 years of backwards compatibility only counts as cool if it's on accident? I agree a lot of credit goes to Microsoft, but also to the engineers at Intel and AMD for keeping the zombie that is x86 on its feet all those years - and outperforming everything else to boot. Legacy is a heavy burden to carry; they say Longhorn almost crushed Microsoft. But that also means that the very few companies with enough grunt to pull it off have a big competitive advantage. 25 years of Microsoft and Intel, I don't know whether to admire or resent it.

Re:It is an example of not patenting

[qwerty shrdlu]

Mr Bricklin's site also has an explaination of why VisiCalc wasn't patented: http://www.bricklin.com/patenting.htm In short, it just wasn't how things were done then, and the lawyer didn't think he could pull it off.

Apple II as the standard?

[Spiked_Three]

I'm not exactly sure how they came to that conclusion. I worked in one of the first retail home computer software stores and we had tons of customers come in and say "I need/want Visicalc. What computer should I buy?" An apple II was seldome the recomendation. We sold Atari 400/800s, apples, commodore pets and I think most of the time we recommended a TRS-80 if their needs was strictly business with Visicalc.

And we sold a ton of Visicalcs. If Dan couldn't get rich it is because he spent the profits poorley. Not because they were not there.

Re:Apple II as the standard?

[icensnow]

Maybe in a home computer store you were selling more cheaper ones. (By current standards, corrected for inflation, all these were extremely expensive.) I did a lot of temp jobs in banks during the immediate pre-IBM-PC era, and the only personal computers I ever saw were Apple II. They were usually controlled by ubergeek types (before the term was invented) when most people who had computer access had terminals to the IBM mainframes. These people had the knowledge that Visicalc would help them and the clout to get someone to pay for the computer, and the same logic about familiarity and price that led to rooms full of IBM-brand equipment would lead to buying Apple for PCs at that time. Just one person's sample, but I did work a lot of different locations over several summers.

It works like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

People who have talent don't get rich.

People who organize talent get rich.

Since most of us on slashdot are havers, rather than organizers, we sense this as some sort of deep injustice, or dark irony. But really it's just a practical necessity. The organizers are the ones with the power to determine who gets paid what, so they naturally pay themselves the most. If you want that money, then become an organizer instead.

Re:It works like this...

[__aaclcg7560]

Why so funny? Take a look at Steve Wozniak (talent guy) and Steve Jobs (organize guy). Which one has the most money?

Standard Office Libraries

[Doc Ruby]

I don't know why every desktop doesn't include a basic spreadsheet superclass, since it is so common in so many different kinds of apps. I'd expect by now that the OS would include a basic SQL storage/query engine, an app that hooks code and data objects to a 3D array, and a GUI for sheets. And a basic text editor. The original Mac was complete with those apps in 1984, even though only the patterns (not the code, certainly not the source) were available to every app. Over 20 years later, and users and developers still have to roll our own, and use inconsistent GUIs, interfaces, APIs, data models, and just plain redundant bloat.

People like Bricklin who kicked off all this "personal computing" made a lot more changes in the right direction with a lot less technology, for even fewer people, than we've done in the generation since we inherited their vision.