It was October 17, 1979 when VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program for personal computers, was released. To commemorate this “historic” event, fellow MVP Debra Dalgleish created Spreadsheet Day back in 2010. This day has become synonymous with celebrating both the pros and cons of working with spreadsheet software.

VisiCalc was released on this day 42 years ago for the Apple II, to help “…organize (sic) and compute massive amounts of data...”. If my Vic-20 was anything to go by, that could be up to 3.5kb worth! What made VisiCalc so important was its ability to be the first time such a tool could be used on a personal computer, finally putting this power into the hands of small businesses and others that could afford such things back in 1979.

Spreadsheet Day, eh? What an Excel-lent idea!