It's
a day to celebrate spreadsheets, which as easy as 1-2-3, because on
this date in 1983, Lotus began to sell its best-selling,
user-friendly spreadsheet for Microsoft DOS.
Lotus
1-2-3 wasn't the first spreadsheet program for microcomputers,
though.
I
bought my first computer before there was such a thing as a “PC”
or IBM Personal Computer. I bought an Apple II, which was then very
big in the very small microcomputer market. I remember hearing about
this new kind of software – a spreadsheet program, whatever that
was – called VisiCalc. It turned out that VisiCalc made Apple much
more popular as a home and small business computer. A few years
later, Lotus 1-2-3 did the same thing for the new PCs. Nowadays the
most popular spreadsheet program is Excel.
So,
what is a spreadsheet? It is a computer application that allows users
to enter data in table form. Some columns of data are commonly
numbers such as dollar amount, hours, or quantities. The spreadsheet
gives users tools to easily rearrange the data, sorting things
alphabetically, by date, or by amount. Another tool allows users to
easily and automatically perform math formulas on the information.
For example, you might want to add together a column of hours worked,
and in another row you might want to multiply the number of hours by
the hourly wage. With a spreadsheet, you can immediately see how the
total is affected by one change.
Also
on this date:
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