So long Lotus 1-2-3: IBM ceases support after over 30 years of code

So long Lotus 1-2-3: IBM ceases support after over 30 years of code.

Wow. After so much time, I didn't have any idea that Lotus 1-2-3 was alive & kicking and IBM was "actively" supporting it. The grand daddy of the spreadsheet is now truly dead & buried. RIP.

 

That may be so, but I will continue to use Lotus 123 Organizer. Still my Nr.1
hawk22

(Whats more it runs in Windows 8.1)

 

Way to go hawk22. Support, or no support, if a software is good, end of support doesnt make is useless.

I red the article, "So long Lotus 1-2-3: IBM ceases... ". I have not used 1-2-3, but one thing (that I also expected to be mentioned when talking about spreadsheets) in the article caught my attention...

"...Bill Gates had set his beady eyes on Lotus and began developing homegrown versions of the firms products to sell from Redmond. This wasn't too succesful at first (anyone remember Multiplan?) "

Well I do. I have MS Multiplan 1.06 on Commodore 64. I think its pretty impressive spreadsheet software running on 38911 bytes of RAM. And back in the 80's some thought that Commodore was just for playing games etc. And I have used it also. Many would consider calculating their tax deductions boring... but no its not, if one does it with Multiplan on C64, like I've done I also used it for few other personal records, such as car gas, oil, maintenace/spareparts, insurance etc. costs. Its been interesting to see, what a spreadsheet software from -83 looks like, and performs.

BTW, wasn't Multiplan successful back then? I thought it was, or was it not successful compared to 1-2-3? Or was that just MS bashing.

 

Wikipedia: Multiplan

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Wikipedia: Lotus 1-2-3

 

MultiPlan (1982) competed with VisiCalc and SuperCalc. Lotus 1-2-3 (1983) was far and away the market leader until MultiPlan was replaced by Excel (1985), which was created for the Mac and ported to the PC in 1987.

"...although various spreadsheets had attributes that were sometimes considered superior to 1-2-3’s, there was no general consensus that any alternative was clearly the best. "

That lasted until late 1987 when a review in in PC Magazine stated: "Microsoft Corp. has just unleashed a spreadsheet that makes 1-2-3 look like a rough draft.â€

A couple of good articles with the play by play:

Brief History of Spreadsheets

The Market for Spreadsheets

 

OK, VisiCalc, SuperCalc, and especially 1-2-3, were clearly market leaders, compared to Multiplan.
I just thought, it was more succesful. E.g, MS Excel 4.0 Help, had sections for 1-2-3 and Multiplan users, explaining which Excel commands correspond 1-2-3 and Multiplan commands.