The most popular programming language in the world, with more users than Python, Java, JavaScript, and C combined!

What is the most popular programming language in the world?

Python? Java? JavaScript? C?

No, it’s Excel!

Foreign media estimate that 1.2 billion people around the world use Microsoft’s Office suite, of which an estimated 750 million people use Excel!

But isn’t Excel just capable of writing some formulas and doing some calculations? Is this also a programming language?

The previous Excel was not Turing complete. In 2021, Microsoft introduced LAMBDA to make Excel Turing complete, transforming Excel into a comprehensive programming language.

Of course, ordinary users rarely use Lambda. They mainly organize data, use formulas to analyze, do visualization, and provide decision-making. According to this, this is the stage of Excel.

Although Excel is now making all the waves, it also rushed out from the mountain of corpses and sea of ​​blood, and was almost killed.

Today we will talk about the story of the development of Excel.

1. Magic paper

When I was working in a foreign company, I had a foreign colleague who never talked about PPT, but Slides, and never Excel, but SpreadSheet.

I wasn't used to it at first, but later after looking at the development history of Excel, I realized that he was right. Excel is just a type of SpreadSheet.

SpreadSheet (SpreadSheet) is not an invention of Microsoft. It was the brainchild of Harvard student Daniel Bricklin.

In 1977, Daniel Bricklin was studying for an MBA at Harvard Business School, and Professor Jean These MBA students fill out some ledger forms to predict the financial status of the company's acquisition. These light green tables are very annoying to fill out. The data in the tables are dependent on each other. If you fill in one place incorrectly, the rest will have to be recalculated.

Bricklin, who once designed word processing software, immediately thought: Why write a spreadsheet program to automatically perform calculations?

Bricklin’s teacher thought he was wasting his time: You’re not mistaken, the PCs on the market now are all toys. Besides, these form-filling tasks will not be completed in the future. It's all the work of accountants and secretaries. Your MBA's main job is modeling!

What the teacher said is absolutely correct. This was 1977, and the Apple II had just appeared. There was no commercial software on it. It was indeed a big toy for enthusiasts.

But Bricklin did not believe in evil. He found a friend from MIT who could program, and the two collaborated to write the world's first spreadsheet software in assembly: VisiCalc, meaning Visible Computing.

The interface of this software is green. I guess it was based on the color of the ledger form at that time:

What no one expected was that VisiCalc quickly became the "killer software" on the Apple II. The only reason people bought the Apple II was to use VisiCalc on it.

##VisiCalc has brought about as many changes to the world as double-entry accounting.

With spreadsheets, businessmen only need to enter numbers and see what the output is. And spreadsheets running on PCs break down the hierarchical structure of large companies and delegate power to more people. They don't even need to rely on the data department, they can do it themselves.

VisiCalc This "magic piece of paper that could perform calculations and recalculates" started a revolution that transformed the PC from a hobbyist's toy to a serious business tool.

2. A sudden rise

Once the spreadsheet market Turn it on, and fierce competition is coming.

In 1980, just one year after VisCalc came out, Sorcim released SuperCalc, which solved the problem of circular references between cells.

In 1982, Microsoft officially took action and launched its own spreadsheet program Multiplan, which provided "larger worksheets" and other improvements.

But none of them can shake the status of the pioneer VisiCalc, because "A person's destiny must of course rely on self-strength, but the process of history must also be taken into consideration!"

Mitchell Kapor is a programmer who originally developed plug-ins based on VisiCalc. He has developed two graphics plug-ins that can generate graphics from VisiCalc files.

VisiPlot

VisiTrend

When the IBM PC, an epoch-making product, was launched When VisiCalc took no action, Kapoor realized an opportunity had come.

He sold his software copyright for US$1.7 million, and then raised another US$1.3 million in venture capital, taking risks and betting IBM PC, developed new spreadsheet software Lotus1-2-3.

1-2-3 refers to how the product is used, which is a spreadsheet, graphics package, and database manager.

Just as VisiCalc was the Killer application for the Apple II, Lotus 1-2-3 became IBM compatible machines and killer applications on MS-DOS are available. IBM compatible machines are much cheaper than Apple computers and the market is huge.

Kapur took advantage of the trend and set off a marketing frenzy. The research and development cost was 1 million US dollars, and the product launch cost 250 US dollars. Sales of Lotus 1-2-3 skyrocketed. In the first 18 months It sold 850,000 units and quickly became the new overlord in the spreadsheet field.

Lotus also surpassed Microsoft and became the largest independent software company in the world.

How popular is Lotus 1-2-3? When many people buy a computer, they don't want to buy an IBM PC compatible machine, nor do they want to buy an MS-DOS compatible machine, but want to buy a computer that can run Lotus 1-2-3!

3. Return of the King

Looking at Lotus1 -2-3 Dominates its own MS-DOS and makes money, but Multiplan is like a loser. Is Microsoft just going to die out?

This is absolutely impossible!

In the fall of 1984, four people from Microsoft secretly settled in the Red Lion Hotel in Seattle.

The four people from left to right are: Bill Gates, Doug Klunder, Jabe Blumenthal and Charles Simonyi

They will brainstorm for three days here to discuss how to kill Lotus1-2-3.

Bill Gates first elaborated on the current severe situation. Lotus's sales in the second year will reach 150 million US dollars, already surpassing Microsoft!

Everyone expressed their determination to make Excel, a more powerful spreadsheet software, and knock Lotus1-2-3 to the ground.

The four people had a full discussion on the user interface and key functions of Excel, and finally made two important decisions:

1 . Intelligent recalculation

The current SpreadSheet has a flaw. When the value of a cell changes, all cells must be recalculated. This is in the PC's pitiful 16K memory. , running too slowly. The new software Excel must only calculate relevant affected cells. This will have a huge advantage in performance and users will have a magical experience!

Doug Klunder even put forward a slogan: Recalc or die! Meaning, if you can’t achieve intelligent recalculation, die.

2. Abandon the DOS platform and let Excel run on the GUI.

Lotus 1-2-3 has become the overlord of the text-based DOS platform. Don't compete head-on with it, but focus on the next generation GUI platform.

The sad thing is that Windows 1.0 will not be completed until a year later. The only operating system on the market that supports GUI is Apple's Macintosh.

Bill Gates decided to develop the Macintosh version of Excel first. This is a decision that is difficult for outsiders to understand: let other people's children run wild in their own yard (MS-DOS), and Putting his children in other people's homes (Macintosh)

It must be said that Bill Gates not only understands technology, but also has a very business acumen. From Macintosh, he has realized that GUI is In the future, Excel will have a dimensionality reduction impact on Lotus.

In 1985, the Macintosh version of Excel was officially launched. This was the first graphical human-computer interactive spreadsheet system, with a beautiful appearance, drop-down menus, and the ability to operate with the mouse! Much better than text-based Lotus 1-2-3.

Excel begins to encroach on the territory of Lotus 1-2-3.

In November 1987, the first Excel for Windows systems was also produced. .

Lotus1-2-3 was slow to move and could not be used for Windows systems. By 1988, Excel sales exceeded Lotus!

This is a landmark event, which means the birth of a new software overlord!

Since then, about every two years, Microsoft will launch a new version to expand its advantages, leaving all its competitors far behind.

#4. Ending

Excel has a special meaning for Microsoft. Doug Klunder, the lead developer of Microsoft Excel 1.0, recalled: "Microsoft bet its future on Excel and Windows. If both programs fail, Without it, Microsoft would not be able to survive today."

It is said that when Microsoft was developing Excel, it secretly learned the GUI technology of Macintosh and switched to its own Windows. This made Jobs was furious and pointed at Bill Gates and yelled: I trust you so much, but you stole our things!

Bill Gates did not respond with anger or retort, but calmly told a story: "Steve, I understand your anger, but we can look at it from another angle. Let’s look at the problem. We both have a rich neighbor named Xerox. When I broke into their house to steal the TV, I found that you had already... stolen it."

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