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Dan Bricklin has his version of the history of Software Arts and VisiCalc on the web at Bricklin includes early ads and reviews and pictures of the VisiCalc packaging and screenshots. About 1 million copies of the spreadsheet program were sold during VisiCalc's product lifetime. VisiCalc became an almost instant success and provided many business people with an incentive to purchase a personal computer or an H-P 85 or 87 calculator from Hewlett-Packard (cf., Jim Ho, 1999). The name "VisiCalc" is a compressed form of the phrase "visible calculator" (see email from Frankston, b). In May 1979, Fylstra and his firm Personal Software (later renamed VisiCorp) began marketing "VisiCalc" with a teaser ad in Byte Magazine. Bricklin and Frankston formed Software Arts Corporation on January 2, 1979. Fylstra was "marketing-oriented" and suggested that the product would be viable if it could run on an Apple micro-computer. For more details checkĭuring the fall of 1978, Daniel Fylstra, founding Associate Editor of Byte Magazine, joined Bricklin and Frankston in developing VisiCalc.
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He also expanded the program and "packed the code into a mere 20k of machine memory, making it both powerful and practical enough to be run on a microcomputer". Frankston created the production code with faster speed, better arithmetic, and scrolling. Bricklin calls Frankston the "co-creator" of the electronic spreadsheet. The first version was not very "powerful" so Bricklin recruited an MIT acquaintance Bob Frankston to improve and expand the program. The program helped users input and manipulate a matrix of five columns and 20 rows. His metaphor was "an electronic blackboard and electronic chalk in a classroom."īy the fall of 1978, Bricklin had programmed the first working prototype of his concept in integer basic. He wanted a program where people could visualize the spreadsheet as they created it. Bricklin thought there must be a better way. The story is that Dan Bricklin was preparing a spread sheet analysis for a Harvard Business School "case study" report and had two alternatives: 1) do it by hand or 2) use a clumsy time-sharing mainframe program. The tale of VisiCalc is part myth and part fact for most of us. Therefore, a history of the modern era of microcomputer-based electronic spreadsheets should begin with the "Tale of VisiCalc". Mattessich, Pardoe and Landau's work and that of other developers of spreadsheets on mainframe computers probably had no influence on Bricklin and Frankston. 4,398,249) for LANPAR in August 1982 after 12 years of litigation. This electronic spreadsheet type application was used for budgeting at Bell Canada, AT&T, Bell operating companies, and General Motors. Rene Pardo and Remy Landau co-invented "LANPAR" LANguage for Programming Arrays at Random in 1969. Some historical information on the computerization of accounting spread sheets using mainframe computers is discussed on Mattessich's web page " Spreadsheet: Its First Computerization (1961-1964)". In 1961, Professor Richard Mattessich pioneered the development of computerized speadsheets for use in business accounting. The spreadsheet program summarizes information from many paper sources in one place and presents the information in a format to help a decision maker see the financial "big picture" for the company. The data can then be "added up" by a formula to give a total or sum. It spreads or shows all of the costs, income, taxes, and other related data on a single sheet of paper for a manager to examine when making a decision.Īn electronic spreadsheet organizes information into software defined columns and rows. In the realm of accounting jargon a "spread sheet" or spreadsheet was and is a large sheet of paper with columns and rows that organizes data about transactions for a business person to examine. L-r Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston approx. We can look back and recognize that VisiCalc was the first "killer" application for personal computers. Bricklin and Bob Frankston then co-invented or co-created the software program VisiCalc. In 1978, Harvard Business School student, Daniel Bricklin, came up with the idea for an interactive visible calculator (see email from Frankston, a). Information Systems oral history and some published newspaper and magazine stories celebrate Dan Bricklin as the "father" of the electronic spreadsheet. Computerized or electronic spreadsheets are of much more recent origin. Spreadsheets have been used by accountants for hundreds of years. 3.6 by Ī Brief History of Spreadsheets by D.