You've probably never heard of it, but Visicalc celebrated it's 32nd birthday this past week, and you should help yourself to a big chunk of birthday cake in it's honour.

And if you are wondering what or who Visicalc is, well, it's the world's first ever spreadsheet programme. As simple, and as momentous, as that.

Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston were the pioneers in the field of spreadsheet programmes, daring to go where no geek had gone before. We've come a long way since then, of course, and today's latest and greatest version of Microsoft Excel can run rings around Visicalc without exerting itself too much, but back in the day (and we're talking THREE decades here), Visicalc was literally the coolest thing on a personal computer.

THe story goes something like this: Dan Bricklin was a student at Harvard, and had been wondering about the possibility of an electronic spreadsheet program for quite a while, but wasn't quite sure how to go about it. Fortunately for all of us, he simply decided to go ahead and do it, along with some help from a friend of his, Bob Frankston. Thus was born Software Arts, Inc. and thus was born the world first... calculedger.

There is a lesson in here for all of us, namely, being an excellent software innovator isn't quite the same as being the world's best copywriter.

On a more serious note, that (calcu-ledger) was the name that Dan figured would be most appropriate for his fledgling software product. In fact, as he mentions here, he actually wrote a paper about it while in college. "Dan Bricklin's Special Short Paper for the Harvard Business School Advertising Course"

The first version couldn't do too much, of course, but its value and potential was realized very quickly be investors, who were only too glad to get in on the business. Since then, there have been many versions of electronic spreadsheets, including Supercalc, Multiplan and of course, Lotus 1-2-3, which very quickly came to rule the roost.

And all of us know the programme that displaced Lotus 1-2-3, of course. And that's a whole new story in itself. But for the moment, let's stop working on that one million row monster, and pay homage to a simple little porgramme that allowed us to weave magic with numbers ever since it first blinked its nascent little green cursor an an Apple, all those many years ago.

You can find out a lot more about Visicalc and Bob on his homepage, located right here. There's a Wikipedia page about Visicalc as well, which should also be worth your time. But in any case, the next time you build a multi-sheet model in Excel, using a multitude of formulas and add-ins, pause for a moment and offer up a simple thank you to the pioneers of our little industry.

Here's to Visicalc!

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