Re: Excel - was RE: How do you calm down the hot-heads?

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu Sep 11 2003 - 07:48:33 MDT

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    On Thu, 11 Sep 2003, Chuck Kuecker wrote:

    > Anyway, which came first - Excel or Lotus 123? Seems to me Lotus was out
    > first, and Microsoft stole their lunch...

    Actually, neither. As I recall, I was working at Yourdon, Inc. in
    the early 1980's when an individual, who if I recall correctly was
    named Mark Pearson, developed the first spreadsheet application I
    ever saw. [I don't recall the name of the program.] Of course it
    was rather cumbersome since windows did not exist so one was running
    it on standard 23x80 terminals. I think subsequently VisiCalc became
    the first well known spreadsheet application. Then came Lotus 123
    followed by Excel. Can't google come up with something on the
    "history of spreedsheets"?

    Also, on a related topic -- Java was not designed by Bill Joy, it
    was designed by James Gosling [1].

    R.

    1. Lohr, S., "Sun Microsystems' Co-Founder and Chief Scientist Resigns"
        NY Times (10 September 2003).
        http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/10/technology/10JOY.html?pagewanted=print



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