Today, we take for granted the software we use to type documents, calculate spreadsheets and present slides to an audience. But nearly 40 years ago, this was some of the most advanced software around.
Below is a round-up of some of the most innovative software of the 1980s, some of which we still use today...
Electric Pencil
Electric Pencil was the first word processor for home computers and was released in 1976.
The software was developed by Michael Shrayer, who wanted to use his computer, and not a typewriter, to write a program for his MITS Altair 8800 computer.
Shrayer advertised the software in computer magazines and sold it via mail order. The software needed 8K of memory and an Intel 8080 or Zilog Z80 process to work.
Electric Pencil was the first program to incorporate word wrap; a basic feature of word processors today which adjusts lines as words are added and deleted. The software’s popularity waned when WordStar and Magic Wand were released.
WordPerfect
WordPerfect is a word processing application developed at Brigham Young University in 1979 and now owned by Corel.
In contrast to its main competitor, WordStar, WordPerfect was a lot more advanced and had many more features.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, WordPerfect dominated the market, partly because it was available to use on a wide range of computers and operating systems.
Multiplan
Multiplan was an early Microsoft spreadsheet program introduced in 1982. The program was released for computers running CP/M (Control Program/Monitor) operating system.
Multiplan sold over 1 million copies, but it never really competed with Lotus 1-2-3. There are a couple of suggested reasons for this. Bill Gates thought that this was because there were too many ports (versions) of Multiplan (there were over 100). Gates also thought it was a mistake to release 8-bit versions of Multiplan when newer, 16-bit machines were available.
Another possible reason it wasn’t as successful as VisiCalc, is because VisiCalc used the A1 notation for cells.
Lotus 1-2-3
Lotus 1-2-3 was a spreadsheet program created by Lotus Software and first released in January 1983.
Lotus was a hugely popular program which dominated the market, taking over from the former market-leader, VisiCalc. It was the first computer software to use television advertising and became the industry-standard during the 80s and into the 1990s.
In design, Lotus 1-2-3 was similar to VisiCalc; it had A1 notation for cells and a slash-menu structure. It did, however, exceed VisiCalc performance-wise. It was largely free of bugs and wrote directly to the video memory, instead of using slower DOS (Disk Operating System) and BIOS (basic input/output system) functions, which many other spreadsheets did at the time.
Lotus 1-2-3 was the most popular spreadsheet software until Windows became popular in the early 90s. At this time, many Lotus users made the switch to Microsoft Excel.
In 2012, almost 30 years after it was first launched, Lotus was discontinued. Support for the software officially ended two years later, in 2014.
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is word processor software launched in 1983 by Microsoft. Word ran on the UNIX operating system initially, but a later version was written to run on PCs like the IBM pc. This ran on Microsoft’s version of DOS (disk operating system) or MS-DOS.
Word was WYSIWYG software (what you see is what you get). This meant that the document that was shown on screen was exactly how it would like when printed. It was the first word processing software to show text styles on the screen, such as italic, bold and underlined. As time went on new features were added to Word, including spell-check and word-count, in 1985.
During the 1980s, Microsoft Word consistently ranked as the most popular word-processing software for PCs. It has gone on to become the most popular word process on Windows and Macs.
VisiCalc
VisiCalc was the financial equivalent of the word processor. It was created in the late 70s, with ‘VisiCalc’ being a shorter version of ‘visible calculator.’
VisiCalc was spreadsheet software that could recalculate entire lines of sums just by changing one number, making calculating figures easier than ever. A precursor to Microsoft Excel, it sold more than 700,000 copies in just six years.
There were some issues associated with VisiCalc, though. It had its limitations, which were seized upon by competitors who were able to emulate the software while also adding more sophisticated features to their offering. One such competitor was Lotus 1-2-3.
When Lotus 1-2-3 arrived on the scene in the early 80s, VisiCalc sales dropped considerably. Lotus eventually bought VisiCalc in 1985 and stopped selling the software, giving them the monopoly on the market.
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel was first launched and marketed as Multiplan (which we’ve looked at earlier in the blog), in 1982. This was popular on CP/M systems, but not on MS-DOS systems, which favoured Lotus 1-2-3 instead.
Losing popularity to Lotus made Microsoft develop their spreadsheet platform further and give it new capabilities. The first version of Excel was released in 1985 for mac, and 1987 for Windows. It was designed and pitched as doing everything Lotus 1-2-3 did but “better”.
By the late 1980s, Excel was outselling Lotus 1-2-3 and helped cement Microsoft’s position as the leading PC software company. To keep ahead of the competition and maintain their dominance of the market, Microsoft released new versions of Excel every couple of years.
PowerPoint
PowerPoint is a presentation slide show program which was developed by Microsoft for use on both Microsoft and Apple Macintosh operating systems.
PowerPoint was originally called Presenter and was launched in May 1990 as part of the Microsoft Office suite of products. It is one of the most commonly used slide-based presenting programs in the world today.
