Encyclopedia > VISICALC

  Article Content

VisiCalc

Redirected from VISICALC

VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program available for personal computers. Conceived by Dan Bricklin, refined by Bob Frankston and distributed by Personal Software Inc. in 1979 (later VisiCorp[?]) for the Apple II computer, it propelled the Apple from being a hobbyist's toy to being a much-desired, useful financial tool for business. This likely motivated IBM to enter the PC market which they had been ignoring until then.

Legend has it that Bricklin was watching his university professor create a table of calculation results on a blackboard. When the professor found an error, he had to tediously erase and rewrite a number of sequential entries in the table, triggering Bricklin to think that he could replicate the process on a computer, using a blackboard/spreadsheet paradigm to view results of underlying formulas.

Later, more powerful clones of VisiCalc include SuperCalc[?], Borland Quattro Pro, Lotus 1-2-3 and Microsoft Excel.

External links



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
French resistance

... joint presidents of the CNR. Giraud found himself outmaneuvered by De Gaulle and left in October 1943. In June 7 1943 Gestapo captured resistance member René ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 37.8 ms