game trailblazer

Chapter 5 Spreadsheets
The famous spreadsheet software on the Apple II is VisiCalc, developed by Dan Bricklin (Dan Bricklin) and his friend Bob Frankston (Bob Frankston).

The germination of the VisiCalc design idea occurred in 1977, when Bricklin had left DEC, where he had worked before, and was studying for an MBA at Harvard Business School.During this period, the most painful thing for Bricklin was that some extracurricular homework assigned by the tutor was monotonous and tedious to fill in documents, accounts and statistical forms. .Bricklin, who knows how to play with computers, naturally didn't want to bear it. He quickly set his sights on the school's minicomputer, intending to hand over these troublesome tasks to the computer, but he found that different financial problems required different calculation methods , needs to be reprogrammed frequently, so Bricklin, who hates repetition, has the idea of ​​writing a general program.

In the spring of 1978, Bricklin learned the popular BASIC language. Full of creative passion, he decided to start his own programming. This time he wanted to start with a microcomputer.The popular microcomputers at that time mainly included Comodo's PET, Tang Di's TRS-80, and Apple's Apple II. Since they were not compatible with each other, the initial choice was very important.In the end, Bricklin chose the Apple II, not because the performance of the Apple II was so good, but because poor Bricklin could only borrow one Apple II.After getting the microcomputer, Bricklin's programming work officially started. The first version was written in BASIC language. Although the speed was so slow that he could make coffee during calculations, it initially possessed the basic features of a spreadsheet.

If he wanted to improve the running speed of the program, he could only consider using assembly, but Bricklin was not good at this. At this time, he thought of his friend Frankston.Bricklin told Frankston about his ideas, and Frankston, who had long been interested in starting a business, readily agreed, and the two established a small company called Software Art (SA) in early 1979 to jointly improve Bricklin. I'm on hand with the program.The two worked together and worked hard for more than two months, and finally wrote the first commercial software of Software Art Company.After the software was written, the two named the software "VisiCalc". "Visible" means "visible" and "Calculate" means "calculation". That is "visible computing".

Soon after, VisiCalc was officially launched to the commercial market with the help of D. Fylstra, the boss of the personal software company. Despite sales of the Apple II, by 1980 there were more than [-] Macs used primarily to run such spreadsheets.

……

Of course, these are all situations that exist in IT history. Zhang Lexing is not very clear. He only knows that VisiCalc is the most popular spreadsheet software on the Apple II. He also analyzed this software when he was studying the Apple II simulator. Now there are After seeing the real Apple II, Zhang Lexing couldn't help but want to relive it again.

After trying the random spreadsheet software VisiCalc, Zhang Lexing felt that it was similar to his own impression. The functions of the software were relatively simple, and the improvement plan he had conceived had a place to use.Zhang Lexing has seen a lot of spreadsheet software, from the earliest CCED, Louts1-2-3, to MS-Execl, which almost dominated the world later. Some human considerations are still of great reference value.Using disassembly to revisit the source code of VisiCalc, recalling the many spreadsheet softwares he had used, Zhang Lexing gradually had a design framework for spreadsheet software in his mind.Software Design Begins...

More than two weeks later, the spreadsheet program has been preliminarily completed, and most of the envisioned functions have been basically completed. The unrealized functions are all due to the insufficient performance of the Apple II. Whenever Zhang Lexing misses that he is still in his infancy Of course, what he misses more is the Core 2 Duo.The next step is the debugging and optimization stage of the software, troubleshooting, optimization and optimization. After almost two weeks, the spreadsheet software has basically been debugged to the best state. After spending a few days to supplement the software usage help, it is finally done. , and finally he casually named the software VisualForm.

After completing the VisualForm design, Zhang Lexing made a simple modification to the random VisiCalc. Of course, his main idea was to create a software to explore the way and see the factory's attitude towards computers. VisiCalc itself does not support double-byte, and this Apple II does not have a Chinese card, so of course there is no way to directly display Chinese characters.Fortunately, when Zhang Lexing was studying the Apple II simulator, he read some design materials about the Apple computer's soft font library, which was very inspiring to him. Many of the codes in it can still be clearly remembered.

It took three days for Zhang Lexing to design a detachable Chinese character processing module. He used the hook technology to take over the output processing of VisiCalc, successfully converted its main interface to Chinese, and made it according to what he learned about the financial management of the factory. made appropriate adjustments.It’s just due to the lack of a comprehensive font library and input method. Of course, the main reason is that Zhang Lexing really doesn’t have the energy to draw Chinese characters one by one. Just drawing the Chinese characters displayed on the interface makes him half-tired. It seems to be composed of dots, so it can only display fixed Chinese prompts, and cannot input Chinese.

As soon as the Chinese display VisiCalc came out, Uncle Zhao was shocked.Looking at the strange yet somewhat familiar characters on the computer screen (the Chinese characters are less dotted, and the strokes of some characters can only be adjusted a bit), Uncle Zhao opened his mouth so wide that he could stuff an egg.

"Oh my god, Lexing, you...how did you do this?" Uncle Zhao who came back to his senses immediately grabbed me and asked.

"I was doing nothing to play. I saw some programming methods from these materials. I tried it, but I didn't expect to be able to display Chinese characters. It's just that Chinese characters are too troublesome to draw. Just for these few characters, I almost drew a big picture. Half a day." Zhang Lexing deftly pushed Uncle Zhao's question to the material that he couldn't speak, anyway, no one in the factory could understand the material in English.

"Le Xing, I think what you made is very interesting, why don't I show it to the leader." Uncle Zhao said excitedly.

"Uncle Zhao, don't worry. I still need to perfect this." Zhang Lexing is actually a little worried that after the software is handed in, this computer will not have a chance to be used. After all, there is only such an Apple II in the factory, and he still wants to give himself more. Save some useful programs.

Unable to resist Zhang Lexing's insistence, Uncle Zhao reluctantly agreed.But it was only a week, and Uncle Zhao couldn't hold back for a moment when he was having dinner with the factory manager, so he casually mentioned the software.The computer room has made some achievements, especially related to the people who the factory manager arranged to enter the factory. The factory manager is of course very satisfied, and immediately asked the office director to arrange relevant leaders to visit.

After Zhang Lexing and Uncle Zhao demonstrated the Chinese culture of VisiCalc, the leaders seemed very happy and gave enthusiastic speeches.

"...The comrades in the computer room are still working very hard, and the results are still very obvious..." Leader A said.

"...This situation shows that the comrades in our factory are still very diligent and worthy of encouragement!" Leader B also expressed his attitude.

……

But when someone mentioned whether the financial office would consider using it, the deputy factory director in charge of finance was not happy, and expressed his distrust of computers, and finally said that he would not be responsible for future account problems if using this.In the end, it was the director of the office who came out to smooth things over to ease the atmosphere. Of course, this software was sent to the archives room as expected, and it was sealed for future use when the superiors came to inspect it. As for the financial office, of course it was impossible to use it. At this time, all they trusted were their pens and abacus.

Uncle Zhao is fine, he is still cheerful all day long, it may be a great honor for him to be praised by the factory leader, but Zhang Lexing is a little disappointed, he was still holding a glimmer of hope, looking forward to some changes after rebirth, Unexpectedly, today's enterprises really don't pay much attention to computers, and even dismiss computer software, and even have some repulsive psychology, simply treating computers as a decoration.Zhang Lexing sighed secretly. He was completely disappointed in relying on the computer to make his way out of the factory. He didn't know when he was going to be the first in the factory like this. It seemed that he had to think of another way.

In his spare time, Zhang Lexing began to ask around, wanting to see if there was a place for computer research in the city, but he was naturally disappointed.Zhang Lexing couldn't help sighing: "Could it be that I can only go to BJ to find a place to display my abilities? But I also know that at my current age, even if I find a place to do computer research, even if I don't get blown away from the door, It is also impossible to let such a little guy do research, after all, it is still a period that is very particular about qualifications."

Zhang Lexing, who is somewhat depressed, does not go to the computer room as frequently as usual. Every time he goes to the computer room, in addition to improving the operating system, he spends more energy on writing small tools and small games, while Zhang Lexing spends other time on Draw comics, and plan to stick to it for two years before trying to find a new way out.

Unexpectedly, when Zhang Lexing was discouraged, things suddenly took a turn for the better. Of course, at the beginning, he had no idea what kind of opportunity this was.

(End of this chapter)