Language peer sets for VisiCalc:
United States↑
United States/1978↑
Designed 1978 ↑
1970s languages ↑
Fourth generation↑
High Cold War↑
Genus 2D Spreadsheets ↑
Specialised Languages ↑
2D Spreadsheets↑
Spreadsheet↑
State-charts ↑
2D Spreadsheets/1978↑
Spreadsheet/1978↑
State-charts/1978↑
2D Spreadsheets/United States↑
Spreadsheet/United States↑
State-charts/United States↑
Specialised Languages ↑
Specialised Languages/1978↑
Specialised Languages/us ↑
VisiCalc (6694/vis002) |
 |
Spreadsheet program
alternate simple viewCountry: United States
Designed 1978
Published: 1979
Genus: 2D Spreadsheets
Sammet category: Specialised Languages
for VISIble CALCulator
Spreadsheet programming language by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston
Pioneer spreadhseet system - first "killer app", and initiator of a design that still dominates its class
Related languages
| MACSYMA | → | VisiCalc | Influence | |
| QBE | → | VisiCalc | Influence |
References:
Resources
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Dan Bricklin's VisiCalc pages The idea for the electronic spreadsheet came to me while I was a student at the Harvard Business School, working on my MBA degree, in the spring of 1978. Sitting in Aldrich Hall, room 108, I would daydream. "Imagine if my calculator had a ball in its back, like a mouse..." (I had seen a mouse previously, I think in a demonstration at a conference by Doug Engelbart, and maybe the Alto). And "..imagine if I had a heads-up display, like in a fighter plane, where I could see the virtual image hanging in the air in front of me. I could just move my mouse/keyboard calculator around, punch in a few numbers, circle them to get a sum, do some calculations, and answer '10% will be fine!'" (10% was always the answer in those days when we couldn't do very complicated calculations...)
The summer of 1978, between first and second year of the MBA program, while riding a bike along a path on Martha's Vineyard, I decided that I wanted to pursue this idea and create a real product to sell after I graduated.
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Implementing VisiCalc This is my long-delayed attempt at writing about my experience in writing VisiCalc and the many design decisions that we made along the way. But even after nearly a quarter century I remember many of the details though maybe my memories have evolved. The process of writing down this experience is already evoking many memories and, unless proven otherwise, I'll assume that they are memories of real events but others may view it differently and I will try to correct the more creative aspects of my memory.
- Computer History Museum's The Origins and Impact of VisiCalc panel on April 8th 2003 The Computer History Museum and Microsoft present "The Origins and Impact of VisiCalc" Dan Bricklin, Bob Frankston and Mitch Kapor with Charles Simonyi
- VisiCalc Executable for the IBM PC The original VisiCalc program that ran on the IBM PC in 1981 still runs on today's PCs.
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