Visicalc and the origin of spreadsheets

Spreadsheet programs are one of the major types of application on personal computers today, millions of people use the likes of Excel and Numbers daily. The first spreadsheet for a personal computer however was Visicalc which was written by Daniel Bricklin and Bob Frankston in the late 1970s. The program, released for the Apple II initially and other computers like the IBM PC later on, was an immediate success and is said to have kick started the idea of personal computers as things you could do work on instead of playing games or experimenting/developing.

Visicalc's time in the Sun was fairly short, after a few years it was eclipsed by Lotus 1-2-3 and in turn that was eclipsed by Excel but its place in computing history is safe.

An executable version of Visicalc for DOS (including DOSbox on the Mac) can be downloaded and works fine. Whats fascinating is how Visicalc defined so much of basic spreadsheet usage right at the start. Formulae like @SUM and @COUNT which i still use nowadays in Excel and Numbers were defined by Visicalc. Without fonts and formatting getting in the way its also rather quick to set up a spreadsheet in it too...

Review of 2017 : March

March can honestly be described as a massive month. It started normal enough with trips to Stafford and also along the Snow Hill lines. That was followed by my first trip to the Severn Valley Railway of the year to attend the Spring steam gala.

Then at the end of the month a 3 day trip to Guildford. I used the town as my base to visit Woking, taking in the Basingstoke Canal and the Mid-Hants Railway down in Alton. There was also a walk along the Wey Navigation in Guildford. Interestingly my trip down to Guildford was via Reading but back via London so took in some interesting railways. I really enjoyed my trip down to Guildford and hope to return soon, maybe in 2018.

If all that wasn't enough i also built the board for my new HO9 scale model railway (the paint was left to dry while i was off down in Surrey!)

Song of the month was "girlfriend" by Trevor Something.

Class 455 at Guildford

Wey Navigation, Guildford

Woking signalbox

Ropley, Hampshire

Basingstoke Canal, Woking

An Essex album

Completely on a whim i bought, last year, "Vintage Photograph Album Containing 92 Black & White Pictures 1920s" off Ebay. The photos were interesting though completely baffling as there was no information included as to where the photographs had come from and whom they were of. Most of the photographs had no captions though a few did and as Clacton-on-Sea figures a few times in the album i am guessing the photos are of an Essex family in the 1920s. Of course they could be from somewhere else entirely and Clacton is just where they liked to go on holiday!

I'll scan a few photos and display them here over the next few weeks. They seemed a fairly affluent family as they seemed to have a car. Farm animals figure a few times so maybe a wealthy farming family?

We'll start with the pier in Clacton-on-Sea in 1924

Also included this rather lovely bridge over a river

This little one could still be alive perhaps though would be over 100 now!

I couldn't read this, at somewhere in 1922 anyway!

Review of 2017 : February

February is the shortest month and the weather wasn't that good but it was still a busy one. It began with a visit to Nuneaton, not far away but the first time i had been to the station since my Dad took me there in the days of British Rail! I also headed up to Lichfield to visit both stations.

Mid-month i made my first visit to London of the year and checked out the Grosvenor Canal (the last London canal i had yet to visit) and visited the railways in the South of London out of Cannon Street. Song of the month was Leitbur's "lost cosmonaut".

Cannon Street

Pimlico tube station

Grosvenor Canal, lock on the Thames

Most of the Grosvenor Canal in one photo!

Review of 2017 : January

The traditional review of the year, this year i have decided to do a month by month review because there is simply so much to fit in! The year's theme must surely be visiting new places and we made a start in 2017 with a trip to Bedford, the first of many rail adventures in 2017.

Later in the month were trips to Derby and to Stourbridge. Its been so long since i visited the latter it might as well be a new place! The Stourbridge Canal was a new waterway to me, the first of a number of new waterways i've visited this year. Song of the month was "designs in rhythm" by The Ice Choir.

Stourbridge Canal

Another view of the Stourbridge Canal

Class 700 at Bedford

Class 377 at Bedford