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1. The FreeDOS Project (freedosproject@fosstodon.org)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 05:28:34 UTC 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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   • Howard Chu @ Symas (hyc@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 06:34:26 UTC Howard Chu @ Symas

     in reply to

     • 🇺🇦 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 06:34:27 UTC 🇺🇦 haxadecimal

     in reply to

     @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 06:34:27 UTC The FreeDOS Project

     in reply to

     • 🇺🇦 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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   • The FreeDOS Project (freedosproject@fosstodon.org)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 14:11:45 UTC The FreeDOS Project

     in reply to

     • Willard Goosey
     • 🇺🇦 haxadecimal

     @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 14:11:46 UTC Willard Goosey

     in reply to

     • 🇺🇦 haxadecimal

     @freedosproject @brouhaha

     I did not know this. Cool!

   • Lukáš Kotek (trilobyte@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 14:11:50 UTC Lukáš Kotek

     in reply to

     @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 14:11:54 UTC The FreeDOS Project

     in reply to

     • 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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   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Sunday, 10-Dec-2023 14:11:54 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅

     in reply to

     • Lukáš Kotek
     @freedosproject @trilobyte Forward referencing means keeping track of cell dependencies and automatically recalculate when a cell changes?