![]() ![]() It legitimized the use of the personal computer in business and help it get to scale. 1-2-3 was the first piece of software which drove hardware sales. It was state of the art for its day and set a standard for power and ease of use. I asked Kapor to reminisce a bit about the early days. In 1984, the number tripled to $156 million. In its first year, Lotus 1-2-3 sales topped $53 million - in 1983 dollars, mind you. To this day, I believe Lotus 1-2-3, all by itself, started the Microsoft-Intel architecture hegemony. Every single number-cruncher I knew at the time couldn't wait to part with the princely sum of $495 for the product - on top of the price of the PC, typically $3,000 to $5,000. sold its first copy of 1-2-3 for DOS on Jan. Then there were macros: full keyboard-aping "slash" command sets, branching, prompted input, looping, subroutines, and enough nooks and crannies to turn a budding programmer's head 360 degrees. The term "1-2-3" was meant to invoke the idea that the program could perform as a spreadsheet, a graphics suite, and a database program, all of which it did with aplomb. ![]() It took Mitch Kapor and Jonathan Sachs - and seed money from Ben Rosen - to come up with a spreadsheet program that not only calculated and scrolled, but did so on big spreadsheets with with named cells and ranges. VisiCalc was pioneering and did yeoman work, but it was clunky, very limited, and lacking vision. By 1981, VisiCalc had been ported to the IBM PC, selling about 700,000 copies in all flavors during its lifetime. Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston's 1979-era VisiCalc could run cross-foots and reliable recalculations, as well as scroll spreadsheets on an Apple II, all in 20KB. It reeked of divine intervention.īefore Lotus 1-2-3 hit the stands, VisiCalc ruled the cross-footing roost. I vividly remember thinking, "This is going to change everything." For mainframe staff crushed by the burden of endlessly crunching and recrunching numbers - or even balancing a checkbook - Lotus 1-2-3 came as more than a breath of fresh air. ![]() Do you remember the first time you saw Lotus 1-2-3? I certainly do, and if you're of, ahem, a certain age, I bet you do, too.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |