{"id":630,"date":"2019-02-25T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T05:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/?p=630"},"modified":"2019-02-28T09:17:02","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T14:17:02","slug":"visicalc-demo-by-dan-bricklin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/25\/visicalc-demo-by-dan-bricklin\/","title":{"rendered":"VisiCalc Demo by Dan Bricklin"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"d942c2121bfbd137a3b44056a000f09c\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Responsive Top -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-9531091850463532\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"6574318169\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>If you&#8217;re a true spreadsheet nerd, watch this video, with VisiCalc demo by Dan Bricklin, using an Apple II emulator. It&#8217;s fascinating to hear the reasons for some of the design decisions they made, when building the first spreadsheet for personal computers. And remember, when we celebrate Spreadsheet Day this year, on October 17, 2019, it will be a celebration of VisiCalc&#8217;s 40th anniversary.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>Computer Science Class<\/h3>\n<p>The VisiCalc demo was a presentation for the Spring 2019 class in Interaction Techniques class, in the Carnegie Mellon University, School of Computer Science program, with <a title=\"professor is Brad Myers\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cs.cmu.edu\/~bam\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">professor is Brad Myers<\/a>. Professor Myers asked Dan Bricklin to focus on the interaction techniques that VisiCalc used, rather than its algorithms.<\/p>\n<p>I could find any way to embed the video here, so you can watch it at this link, on the Carnegie Mellon site:\u00a0 <a title=\"VisiCalc Demo by Dan Bricklin\" href=\"https:\/\/scs.hosted.panopto.com\/Panopto\/Pages\/Viewer.aspx?id=d129250d-7c28-45f5-874b-a9fa01542afb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">VisiCalc Demo by Dan Bricklin<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Viewing Tips<\/h3>\n<p>The full video runs for an hour and 18 minutes, but the VisiCalc demo ends at the 50 minute mark. The rest of the video is a demo of another one of Dan Bricklin&#8217;s products \u2013 Demo \u2013 an early prototyping tool.<\/p>\n<p>There is a speed control at the bottom right of the window, where you can choose a faster speed for the video playback. I watched at 1.25x speed, and didn&#8217;t have any trouble following the demo.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/visicalcdemobricklin02.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 0px currentcolor; display: inline; background-image: none;\" title=\"speed control for playback\" src=\"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/visicalcdemobricklin02_thumb.png\" alt=\"speed control for playback\" width=\"340\" height=\"237\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Dan Bricklin Tweet<\/h3>\n<p>I found this video from a link that Dan Bricklin posted on Twitter. Here&#8217;s how he described the video:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I was video guest in @bradamyers\u202c Interaction Techniques class \u202a@SCSatCMU\u202c today. I ended up showing VisiCalc in detail w\/why choices were made &amp; my Demo II prototyping tool. Most extensive VC demo &amp; only video of Demo I&#8217;ve done. 80 minutes<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>VisiCalc Mind Map<\/h3>\n<p>At the beginning of the demo, Dan Bricklin showed a VisiCalc mind map, with their design ideas.<\/p>\n<p>You can see a copy of the mind map on <a title=\"the VisiCalc pages of his website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bricklin.com\/visicalc.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the VisiCalc pages of his website<\/a>. It&#8217;s on the page <a title=\"section named &quot;The Idea&quot;,\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bricklin.com\/history\/saiidea.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">named &#8220;The Idea&#8221;,<\/a> about halfway down the page.<\/p>\n<h3>Apple II Keyboard<\/h3>\n<p>Around the 10:30 mark, you&#8217;ll see a photo of the Apple II keyboard, which only has 2 arrow keys \u2013 left and right. The first prototype of VisiCalc used those arrow keys, and pressing the space bar changed the movement to up and down.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a different photo of the Apple II, from Wikipedia (copyright free).<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"User Maury Markowitz on en.wikipedia [Copyrighted free use], via Wikimedia Commons\" href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Micromodem_II_in_Apple_II.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/a\/ac\/Micromodem_II_in_Apple_II.jpg\" alt=\"Micromodem II in Apple II\" width=\"425\" height=\"286\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There wasn&#8217;t much memory in those old computers, and at the 15:55 mark, Bricklin mentions the list of command letters, at the top of the screen. &#8220;We didn&#8217;t have enough memory for the words\u2026this was really tight coding.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To see all the commands, take a look at the <a title=\"photo of the Apple II reference card\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bricklin.com\/history\/saiproduct1.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">photo of the VisiCalc for Apple II reference card<\/a> on Bricklin&#8217;s website.<\/p>\n<p>Also, at the 18:36 mark, Bricklin\u00a0 explains why he used the slash key with commands, instead of the Ctrl key, which was used in other programs &#8212;\u00a0 &#8220;I was born with bent little fingers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>More Highlights<\/h3>\n<p>Here are a few more highlights from the VisiCalc demo video, and <a title=\"go to the video page to watch the fill VisiCalc demo\" href=\"https:\/\/scs.hosted.panopto.com\/Panopto\/Pages\/Viewer.aspx?id=d129250d-7c28-45f5-874b-a9fa01542afb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">go to the video page to watch the full VisiCalc demo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>23:45 &#8212; Professor mentions that these commands still work in Excel, and Dan shows Excel<br \/>\n26:23 &#8212; Why the letters are at the top (there are emulator problems at this point, and the explanation starts 30:15)<br \/>\n31:43 &#8212; Limit for number of digits &#8212; based on US budget total at that time<br \/>\n35:45 &#8212; No precedence (order of operations), like cheaper calculators<br \/>\n50:10 &#8212; End of VisiCalc presentation, followed by Dan Bricklin&#8217;s Demo II<\/p>\n<p>__________________________<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>VisiCalc Demo by Dan Bricklin<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/visicalcdemobricklin03a.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 0px currentcolor; display: inline; background-image: none;\" title=\"VisiCalc Demo by Dan Bricklin\" src=\"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/visicalcdemobricklin03a_thumb.png\" alt=\"VisiCalc Demo by Dan Bricklin\" width=\"425\" height=\"425\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>_______________________________<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;re a true spreadsheet nerd, watch this video, with VisiCalc demo by Dan Bricklin, using an Apple II emulator. It&#8217;s fascinating to hear the reasons for some of the design decisions they made,&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spreadsheets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":637,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions\/637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}