Spreadsheets: Happy birthday to the original killer app birthday cake graphic Quartz Obsession heading level 1 Spreadsheets October 17, 2017 heading level 2 A winning formula heading level 2 separator Freshen up your formulas and pamper those pivot tables International Spreadsheet Day is Oct. 17. On this day in 1979, a computer program called Visi Calc first shipped for the Apple II, marking the birth of the electronic spreadsheet. A few years later, Lotus 1 2 3 for the IBM PC had its moment, and then Microsoft Excel became the dominant spreadsheet program, which it remains today. The spreadsheet was the original killer app the thing that convinced many people to buy a computer for the first time. Conceived as a simple scratchpad, the now ubiquitous tool is used to compile everything from grocery lists to multinational company accounts. Its incredible flexibility makes it both powerful and dangerous, loved and loathed in equal measure. ORIGIN STORY heading level 2 Magic powers heading level 2 separator Dan Bricklin dreamt up the idea for Visi Calc in 1978, while a student at Harvard Business School. He used an early prototype to ace an assignment about financial projections for a corporate marketing campaign, wowing his class with breadth, depth, and detail that was unusual in the era of hand held calculators. Early adopters seemed to possess magic powers, link Bricklin told Quartz dot The spreadsheet quickly became the lingua franca of finance. Software patents were rare in the 1970s, so Visi Calc relied on trademark and copyright protections to ward off rivals. It didn’t work copycat programs soon surpassed the original in popularity. FUN FACT heading level 2 Other names the founders of Visi Calc short for visible calculator considered: Electroledger, heading level 2 Calculedger, Calcupaper, and Compulator. link click upn equals tg NU 1q Cex Ss R Kk U 9n 1MU… WATCH THIS! link Steve Jobs gives the first spreadsheet program credit for the success of the Apple II, his company’s first mainstream machine. DOWNLOAD THIS! The version of Visi Calc released for the IBM PC in 1981 will still run on modern Windows machines. It weighs in at a scant 27.5 kilobytes and can be link downloaded here dot HARD CELL heading level 2 When the sheet hits the fan heading level 2 separator Spreadsheets are easy to make, and even easier to make badly. In one study, researchers at Dartmouth got access to live spreadsheets from a group of companies. Depressingly, they found that only a third were error free: Many were minor, but some skewed numbers by as much as $100 million. The list of costly Excel based snafus is link long and cringe worthy dot Here are few doozies: list with 4 items bullet The opaque, error prone system of risk reporting via spreadsheets at JP Morgan allowed a trader known as the London whale to rack up link more than $6 billion in losses. bullet A spreadsheet formula error led economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff to link overstate the link effects of government debt in an influential paper used by many to justify austerity policies. bullet A single mistaken cell entry led organizers of London’s 2012 Olympics to overbook the synchronized swimming events link by 10,000 tickets. bullet Years of genomics research is link riddled with errors because Excel and other popular spreadsheet applications converted some gene symbols to dates and numbers like turning the gene MARCH 1 into 03 slash 01 slash 2016. out of list POP QUIZ heading level 2 Which of these is not a formula function in Microsoft Excel? equals CONCATENATE equals AGGREGATE equals IMCONJUGATE equals APPROXIMATE If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. QUOTABLE heading level 2 Take her back to the crib and spreadsheets slash Cuz I Microsoft Excel in the bedsheets lyrics from link Outside by Rtillery ART HISTORY heading level 2 Art meets science heading level 2 separator Spreadsheets aren’t just for creative accounting. Japanese artist Tatsuo Horiuchi uses the program to draw elaborate landscapes. He link explains his technique here , if you read Japanese and have a lot of spare time on your hands. Another work of spreadsheet art worth checking out is link this stop motion animation of a scene from Super Mario Bros, made from 1,000 screenshots and, as the anonymous uploader puts it, some hours of work. heading level 2 Back to the future heading level 2 separator In 1863, Jules Verne wrote Paris in the Twentieth Century , a prescient work of speculative fiction. The dystopian capital he imagined 100 years in the future was in thrall to greedy financiers, all powerful corporations, and pervasive automation ( machines advantageously replacing human hands ). Office workers were slaves to calculating machines that looked rather like huge pianos. The Great Ledger, as he described it, was a sort of steampunk proto spreadsheet: block quote …by operating a sort of keyboard, sums were instantaneously produced, remainders, products, quotients, rules of proportion, calculations of amortization and of interest compounded for infinite periods and at all possible rates. There were high notes which afforded up to one hundred fifty percent! out of block quote PERSON OF INTEREST heading level 2 Excel ent heading level 2 separator Every year, students from around the world compete in the Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship. (Yep.) In August, 17 year old John Dumoulin took home the top prize for Excel mastery, which included link $7,000 and an Xbox. At a hotel in Anaheim, contestants were given a set of challenges tricky equations, obscure formulas, and the like to complete in 90 minutes, judged by accuracy and speed. Dumoulin says his spreadsheet skills were honed by tracking baseball stats in his spare time. He’s a big fan of conditional formatting, which link can make your data look very enhanced and eye catching. DIY heading level 2 Level up heading level 2 separator Looking to improve your spreadsheet skills? The Corporate Finance Institute highlights link 10 advanced link Excel formulas every world class financial analyst must know. For other tips, Mr Excel’s many link You Tube videos have been watched more than 8 million times. (Or at least look like you’ve got the skills with link this enthusiastic mug. ) If after all that your data analysis needs still aren’t satisfied, Quartz’s Dan Kopf ran down link the link pros and cons of programming languages you can learn SAS, Stata, R, Python, and the like to take things to the next level. TAKE ME DOWN THIS rabbit face HOLE! heading level 2 A virtual cult of the spreadsheet has formed, complete with gurus and initiates, detailed lore, heading level 2 arcane rituals – and an unshakable belief that the way the world works can be embodied in rows and heading level 2 columns of numbers and formulas. link Steven Levy, A Spreadsheet Way of Knowledge, Harper’s, 1984 TALK TO US heading level 2 What do you think of spreadsheets? Love them! Hate them! Love to hate them! A life without pivot tables is not worth living. THE FINE PRINT In yesterday’s poll about the link kilonova , 84 percent of you said you were humbled by the awesomeness of the universe. shooting star Today’s email was reported and written by link Jason Karaian dot Images: Certiport (Dumoulin) The correct answer to the quiz is equals APPROXIMATE. Enjoying the Quartz Obsession? link Send this link to a friend! Not enjoying it? No worries. link Click here to unsubscribe. Quartz 675 Avenue of the Americas, 4th Fl New York, NY 10011 United States Share this email Unlabeled graphic Unlabeled graphic To get missing image descriptions, open the context menu. Unlabeled graphic Unlabeled graphic facebook link graphic pinterest link graphic whatsapp Unlabeled graphic Unlabeled graphic email