ScuzzBlog: Diaries October 2019
Entry 9th October 2019: Post 01: Lotus 1-2-3 - Bit of a spread.
Lotus 1-2-3 - Bit of a spread.
Visicalc launched in 1979 for the Apple II became an immediate hit
and ported to the IBM and most other popular platforms. It's sales
for the early tech era were astonishing exceeding 300,000 in the
first six months of release.
The software wasn't without competition, mainly from Microsoft's
Multiplan in 1981 which also found a home on the C64. The software
wasn't without it's bugs but was successful none the less, with
reports that Apple buyers were acquiring computers just to use the
software. Incredible.
Enter the Lotus Development Corporation founded by Mitchell Kapor
who just happened to be a friend of those responsible for VisiCalc.
And so 1-2-3 was born, designed by Jonathan Sachs and released in
January 1983. The software very quickly overtook VisiCalc and became
the market leader for this type of software.
One of the benefits of the software was to generate graphs and charts.
The spreadsheet software would dominate until the early nineties when
Microsoft Windows started to take hold and with it their Excel program.
For my part I really never have been interested in spreadsheets,
however as part of their SmartSuite they shipped a fantastic bit of
software called Organizer which I first came across on a cover CD.
I was so taken by the software I obtained the whole suite and man
was it excellent. For a long time it seemed like the only software
you would need on your computer for all your filing, desktop etc
needs.
I think the big change came with the sale of Windows software bundled
with new PCs. More and more the computers were arriving with Outlook
and Windows Office etc. Faced with the dominance of Microsoft I
found most if not all the machines in our collected offices using
the MS products. The accounts department continued with 1-2-3 for
a good while but eventually gave in and used Excel.
For me I stayed faithful until around 2008 when I gave up with
word-processors all together. I have only ever really used Notepad
,as I am now, for written work. Mostly cus I spend most of my time
writing HTML documents. It really takes only a few moments to drop
the written text into a good mailer which will spell, grammar and
format your text automatically. I like Notepad.
And so poor old Lotus under the ownership of IBM withdrew the
product on 11th June 2013 providing no alternative software. It
is kinda sad for me cus I think the nineties and the PC were kinda
more colourful for having products like Lotus about.
I have had to redefine my definition of retro when it comes to the
PC tin box. Time was it was probably not old enough but given that
Windows 95 is now 24 years old then the threshold of 25 years has
tipped a lot of this stuff into the retro zone.
Lotus 1-2-3 - Bit of a spread.
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