VisiCalc

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VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program available for personal computers. It is generally considered to be the application that turned the microcomputer from a hobby for computer enthusiasts into a serious business tool.

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VisiCalc's origin

Image:Visicalc.gif

Conceived by Dan Bricklin, refined by Bob Frankston, developed by their company Software Arts, and distributed by Personal Software in 1979 (later named 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. After the Apple II version, VisiCalc was also released for the Atari 8-bit family, the Commodore PET (both based on the MOS Technology 6502 processor, like the Apple), and the IBM PC.

According to Bricklin, he was watching his university professor at Harvard Business School create a financial model on a blackboard. When the professor found an error or wanted to change a parameter, he had to tediously erase and rewrite a number of sequential entries in the table, triggering Bricklin to realize that he could replicate the process on a computer using an 'electronic spreadsheet' to view results of underlying formulae.

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The successors

Despite the electronic spreadsheet being such a revolutionary idea, Bricklin was advised that he would be unlikely to be granted a patent and so failed to profit significantly from his invention. It has been reported that at the time patent law generally did not apply to software, so the product could only be copyrighted—and in time the copyright would fail to protect the product through simple look-and-feel tests which were developed later on.

Later, more powerful clones of VisiCalc were released including SuperCalc, Microsoft's MultiPlan, Borland's Quattro Pro, Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice.org Calc, KSpread and the spreadsheet modules of AppleWorks and gnumeric. The first clone of VisiCalc to become very successful in the market was Lotus 1-2-3, for the IBM PC. Because of the aforementioned lack of a patent, none of the developers of early successors of VisiCalc had to pay any royalties to VisiCorp.