Re: The enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel

On Tue, 29 Oct 2024 09:11:33 -0400, CrudeSausage wrote:

My first experience with a word processor or a spreadsheet program was
with Microsoft Works 2.0 which came with my IBM PS/1 in 1991. I barely
used either but they were nice to have.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_1

The 1981 Osborne 1 came with Wordstar and SuperCalc. Wordstar wasn't the
greatest programming editor but it worked. I never used SuperCalc. It dod
have vi but vi wasn't the greatest editor. Vim was 10 years in the future.
I can't remember if mine had dBase II.

At the time when I went to a client's site they might have anything from a
Commodore PET to a PDP-11 timeshare with a grab bag of editors, compilers,
and assemblers. With the 'portable' Osborne I could bring my environment
with me.

Later I bought a couple of the infamous Osborne Executives that the Boston
Globe was selling as they moved to PCs. They were a business school lesson
in not announcing next generation vaporware that kills your current sales.