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   The FreeDOS Project (freedosproject@fosstodon.org)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 09:11:39 JST The FreeDOS Project

   So I also teach this university course about the history of technology, where students also learn how to use spreadsheets.

   This semester, some of my students were surprised to learn that (a) spreadsheets existed before Windows 🤨 and (b) even a DOS spreadsheet could do everything we learned on the modern spreadsheets, just differently in some cases.

   In this demo, we'll compare LibreOffice Calc on Linux and Quattro Pro on DOS.

   https://youtu.be/Z5LXMpcZjEw

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     The FreeDOS Project (freedosproject@fosstodon.org)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 15:36:32 JST The FreeDOS Project

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     • 🇺🇦 haxadecimal

     @brouhaha Yes! I highlighted that to my students and they were surprised

     First desktop spreadsheet: VisiCalc on Apple II (1979)

     First computer spreadsheet program: LANPAR (1969)

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     Howard Chu @ Symas (hyc@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 15:36:32 JST Howard Chu @ Symas

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     • 🇺🇦 haxadecimal

     @freedosproject @brouhaha and then there's the classic Invisicalc

     Puts up a blank screen so nothing will distract you while you do the calculations in your head

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     🇺🇦 haxadecimal (brouhaha@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 15:36:33 JST 🇺🇦 haxadecimal

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     @freedosproject Spreadsheet programs not only predated Windows, they predated the IBM PC.

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     The FreeDOS Project (freedosproject@fosstodon.org)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 23:11:31 JST The FreeDOS Project

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     • 🇺🇦 haxadecimal
     • Willard Goosey

     @goosey @brouhaha

     It gets better with background: At the time, say you wanted a change in your company's budget software, it would take months to implement on the mainframe (programming, etc)

     For those who could get it, LANPAR was huge because you could make your own budget plan in a weekend.

     When VC came out, loads of companies bought Apple II computers just to run VisiCalc. Because now you could make your own budget plan in an afternoon.

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     Willard Goosey (goosey@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 23:11:32 JST Willard Goosey

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     • 🇺🇦 haxadecimal

     @freedosproject @brouhaha

     I did not know this. Cool!

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     Lukáš Kotek (trilobyte@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 23:11:38 JST Lukáš Kotek

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     @freedosproject Few years ago I experimented a bit with Visicalc for DOS ( http://www.bricklin.com/history/vcexecutable.htm) and I was so surprised how mature software it was! It would easily address the most of the things I need from spreadsheets even today.

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     The FreeDOS Project (freedosproject@fosstodon.org)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 23:11:43 JST The FreeDOS Project

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     • Lukáš Kotek

     @trilobyte It's amazing that VisoCalc invented many of the standards that continue today, especially A1 addressing.

     When I show my students the history of spreadsheets, I start with VisiCalc.

     But VisiCalc can't do forward referencing. I'll show that in the next video. That's why there was the recalc key shortcut.

     We take fwd ref for granted today, not there in VisiCalc. (To be fair, it would have been a big performance problem on the Apple II.)

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     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 23:11:44 JST clacke

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     • Lukáš Kotek
     @freedosproject @trilobyte Forward referencing means keeping track of cell dependencies and automatically recalculate when a cell changes?
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     The FreeDOS Project (freedosproject@fosstodon.org)'s status on Monday, 11-Dec-2023 00:22:43 JST The FreeDOS Project

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     • clacke

     @clacke Yes, exactly. VisiCalc couldn't do it, you had to tap the ❗ key until the numbers stopped changing.

     Lotus 123 could do it.

     LANPAR did it by default in 1969, ten years before VisiCalc, but it was basically a compiler so that's not surprising.

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     Jernej Simončič � (jernej__s@infosec.exchange)'s status on Monday, 11-Dec-2023 00:22:45 JST Jernej Simončič �

     in reply to

     @freedosproject About 13 years ago a client bought a new high-end workstation (i7, 16 GB RAM, SSD). He also wanted to be able to still run his old QuattroPro for DOS on it, and to print from it. I set him up with DOSBox-X to do that.

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