The story of VisiCalc
Apple’s killer app and software’s first ‘life cycle’ victim
January 17th, 2017. Day 17.
Born in 1979, VisiCalc’s digital spreadsheets paved the way for the software industry. The first release was on the popular Apple II and it became the most popular software for microcomputers, selling over 1 million copies in the first 3 years.
The Story
While attending Harvard Business School, Dan Bricklin saw the painful need for electronic spreadsheets, and end the manual updating of table numbers on blackboards and paper spreadsheets around the world.
What he didn’t realize is that his mission would forever change the landscape of software and create an industry that seemed to offer unlimited potential.
Dan was joined by Bob Frankston, an experienced data scientist, and the two built the first program in one winter, calling their new company Software Arts.
VISICALC represented a new idea of a way to use a computer and a new way of thinking about the world. Where conventional programming was thought of as a sequence of steps, this new thing was no longer sequential in effect: When you made a change in one place, all other things changed instantly and automatically.
— Ted Nelson, The Whole Earth Software Catalog
VisiCalc quickly expanded, offering ports for computer models, including the IBM PC, which included VisiCalc during its 1981 launch, positioning itself for their biggest year yet, but peaking just one year later in 1982.
Eventually VisiCalc was losing to newcomer Lotus’ 1–2–3 spreadsheet, created by two former VisiCalc employees. Lotus was packed with more features that took advantage the PC increased memory, screen, and performance.
Considered the first ‘life cycle’ software, VisiCalc was created in ‘78, released in ’79, peaked in ‘82 and was done by ’85. By 1985 Lotus acquired the insolvent, nearly dead VisiCalc. A complete and virtuous cycle in less than 8 years!
One might think with the insanely positive reviews and the fanfare behind VisiCalc, they would put up a bigger fight before being acquired.
An easy thing to solve in hindsight, but with few real life examples to follow its no wonder VisiCalc didn’t live into the next generation of computing. Despite a short life, it achieved tremendous success as a pure software company and was a martyr of the software world to come.
And then?
Dave Winer wrote about the usurping of VisiCalc by Mitch Kapor and Jonathan Sachs and their new Lotus 1–2–3 program. He credits Mitch’s ability to understand the user problem because he was a VisiCalc employee and power user himself. For spreadsheet experts, VisiCalc wasn’t enough, and the updated version for IBM PC didn’t win over many new users. The boom was betting bigger on IBM, and Mitch’s Lotus 1–2–3 was the right move. Lotus would add several software programs to their lineup, including Lotus Notes, and were later acquired by IBM for a cool $3.5 billion.
VisiCalc founders Dan and Bob both moved on VisiCalc. Dan is a serial entrepreneur, founding several more companies and serving in various leadership roles. Bob has been an outspoken critic of telecommunications company roles in developing the internet. More info on their wiki pages: Dan and Bob.
