VisiCalc

What Does VisiCalc Mean?

VisiCalc is the first spreadsheet software program. It was simple to use and enabled sorting and storage of data in tabular rows and columns. VisiCalc was designed to address and replace the manual spreadsheet management process, where changing a single value required altering the entire spreadsheet because with VisiCalc, the changes made to one cell were automatically applied to all the related cells. This software was one of the key things that made personal computers more marketable to regular consumers and businesses, whereas they had previously been relegated to hobbyists and tech geeks.

Techopedia Explains VisiCalc

VisiCalc was conceived by Dan Bricklin and developed by Bob Franskton through their company Software Arts. The program was created in 1979, initially for Apple computers. VisiCalc was later sold to Lotus Corporation and served as the basic architecture behind the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software application.

VisiCalc didn’t include powerful accounting features, but it was a good tool for managing accounts, credit card records, taxes and completing other basic account management tasks.