J-Walk & Associates, Inc.

On This Day

January 26, 1983: Lotus 1-2-3 was released.

The Lotus Development Corporation was founded by Mitchell Kapor, a friend of the developers of VisiCalc. 1-2-3 was originally written by Jonathan Sachs, who had written two spreadsheet programs previously while working at Concentric Data Systems, Inc. To aid its growth, in the UK, and possibly elsewhere, Lotus 1-2-3 was the very first computer software to use television consumer advertising.

1-2-3 was released on January 26, 1983, started outselling then-most-popular VisiCalc the very same year, and for a number of years was the leading spreadsheet for the DOS operating system. Unlike Microsoft Multiplan, it stayed very close to the model of VisiCalc, including the "A1" letter and number cell notation, and slash-menu structure. It was free of notable bugs, and was very fast because it was programmed entirely in x86 assembly language and bypassed the slower DOS screen input/output functions in favor of writing directly to memory-mapped video display hardware.

This reliance on the specific hardware of the IBM PC led to 1-2-3 being utilized as one of the two litmus test applications for true 100% compatibility when PC clones started to appear in the early- to mid- 80s. 1-2-3 was used to test general application compatibility, with Microsoft Flight Simulator being used to test graphics compatibility. Because all of a spreadsheet needs to be resident in memory, it also drove the race to utilize more memory, and extended memory and expanded memory techniques were needed to overcome the DOS limit of 640KB to allow larger spreadsheets - this was so important that a memory used/remaining indicator was displayed on-screen.

- Reader Comments -

Following are comments in response to this item.
The most recent comment is at the bottom.

1. By Debra Dalgleish. Comment posted 26 January, 2009 11:42am

   I started following Mitch Kapor on Twitter a couple of days ago, when he posted this: "Today is 25th anniversary of the Mac! If Bill G. hadn't gotten an exclusive for Excel, we'd have shipped Lotus 1-2-3 for the Mac."
2. By Scobby. Comment posted 26 January, 2009 11:52am

   What a great spreadsheet! Those were the days.
3. By Jon Peltier. Comment posted 26 January, 2009 12:48pm

   "... with Microsoft Flight Simulator being used to test graphics compatibility ..."
   
   So Microsoft was an equal player back in the day.
4. By chip. Comment posted 26 January, 2009 5:55pm

   Ah, Lotus 1-2-3. How I loved her.
   
   Though your screen shot is not the version 1A that I used from about 1984 to 1990. The file extension is .WK3 and the original would have been .WKS. I think that indicates it was from version 3. (The super-fancy "three dimensional spreadsheet" that--oh crap!--wouldn't load in 640k of memory anymore!
   
   I bet I could still write a 1-2-3 macro if I needed to.
5. By John Walkenbach. Comment posted 26 January, 2009 6:06pm

   Yeah, I just snagged that screen shot from the Wikipedia article.
   
   WK3 is indeed the file format for that 1-2-3 multisheet 3D file format. I should have used a box shot from the Lotus Museum:
   http://www.lotusmuseum.com/pages/123_R1
6. By Haffy. Comment posted 27 January, 2009 9:48am

   Those were the days. Saving my precious 123 version 1A spreadsheets on a 5.25 inch floppy, having, of course, loaded 123 from a different floppy in another drive. Simple macros that worked. No crashes. None of the program deciding to recalculate at just the wrong time during your busiest period because, of course, there was only manual calculation. Creating ASCII files to load into word processing packages. Ad hoc, Heath Robinson-style computing. You just can't beat it.
   
   Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. (Apologies for repeating myself.)
7. By Christopher. Comment posted 06 February, 2009 10:16am

   I still use 1-2-3 Version 9.8 as my primary spreadsheet. I find it superior to Excel in numerous ways. If Lotus had adopted VB instead of creating LotusScript I think that it would have reclaimed some market share.
8. By Ken. Comment posted 07 February, 2009 10:04pm

   I remember the day I had to switch from Lotus 1-2-3 to Excel, May 1996, our company converted to MS Office
   
   I too think if they would have had VBA instead of the Script macro language they could have gained market share.
   
   There were so many things I still like about 123 better. The Scenario Manager, FAST, and the ability to (EASILY) created blinking text, to name just a few.
   
   I have hundreds of old Lotus files and macros. Occasionally I go back through them and see just how far spreadsheets have come. I still have old Macros created in 123 that do things that are still difficult to do in Excel.
   
   I still have the old disk for LOTUS 123 2.1, 2.3, and 2.4 I remember when they first came out with the IMPRESS add-in, and I would create graphical spreadsheets that printed out so nicely. People would wonder how I did it. Then later in 2.3 you had WYSIWYG. It was so nice not having to have an extra row and column to create lines around your data.
   
   So what memories do you have of 1-2-3?
9. By JP. Comment posted 10 February, 2009 6:21pm

   Look at the salary and bonuses on that spreadsheet. Do you think anyone today gets paid like that?
10. By enrique antonio rosello coria. Comment posted 24 February, 2010 9:46pm

    My "experience" into Lotus 123 (1.0; 2.0;2.01;2.4;lotus smart suite -vw5- and lotus milenium....(memories) :
    This program in all above versions, I think, was made to me... yes!
    I´m inloved when learn thgh tutorials like that named "tutor123.bas"(affotunatelly I hold two copies yet...in low density floopy disks ! and works both yet!!fascinating tutorial!! like a jewell of those "freewares")all the literature (i did learn lotus by myself, helping with books , disks etc.)
    lotus helpme to mantain in my job... help me in my life! and with Lotus i can discover the other sight of this life..."¡¡??" .....,(esotherism ... is the right way to write this word -metaphisics-).
    So and much more : Thanks Lotus 123..!!
    Best regards, enrique a. roselló coria.- acapulco, guerrero, mexico
    Oh!; And sorry to my very bad english...please!