Using Lotus 1-2-3 in today’s world is a bit of a challenge.
The truth is I’m cheating, it does work, but it only supports a few standard text mode resolutions. If your terminal is not exactly 80 columns wide, it just makes a big ugly mess on your screen.
There’s a workaround, just type
stty cols 80, and it will be confined to a portion of your terminal, looking a bit sad. There is no way to display more columns, and maximizing your terminal will do nothing.
…or is there?
After a lot of research, reverse-engineering, and hard work, Tavis Ormandy managed to get Lotus 1-2-3 to respect any arbitrary terminal size. Bonkers work.
My mother is still using lotus 1-2-3 on eDR-DOS. It always amazes me how fast she inputs data and formulas. It might not be user friendly and there are several undocumented commands and shortcuts that she uses. I could not even with the most modern software reach the level of spreadsheet productivity even if i tried.
Software today is more user friendly, but in raw performance the older stuff often outperforms the new stuff if you know what you are doing.
I first used Lotus 1-2-3 in the fall or winter of 1983 when I worked for a logging company as a temp employee.
The logging company kept track of groups of trees, know as log rafts, from the time they were live trees until they were ready to be sold as finished products to consumers. Each step along the way the company’s employees and customers (that bought the logs and turned them into products) would send updates to the company and each of us in the billing department were assigned over 200 log rafts to keep track of.
We’d get a form with the log raft number and the individual logs that had some kind of change of location or production (cut down, sent down river literally as a log raft, cut into board etc at the saw mill, made into product … I’m simplifying the numbers of steps here. For each update the form would be given to the person like me responsible for keeping track of the log raft. We would then fill out a form and give it to the filing department which logged the update and they would file it in a HUGE filing fire proof room on the ground floor in fire proof file cabinets. The building could literally burn down and all the papers would be fine.
Management would request updates on log rafts, sending the requests to the person like me in the billing department and we would fill out yet another form and give it to the file clerk who would assign it to someone to pull the needed updates from the file cabinets, fill out another form, which would be logged by the file clerk and the form would be given to the billing clerk (like me) and I would write up a report and give it to the requester who would write up their report and give it to their boss who would create their report and give it to their boss and so on.
Nobody in the billing department kept track of anything at their desk because we didn’t have fireproof file cabinets. Literally nothing was saved and I honestly questioned why it was given to us to give to the file clerk. Why not just give it to them in the first place since we did nothing with it except create a report and give it to the file clerk.
But I started entering it into our HP 3000 mainframe into a database that I created. And a couple months later when a request for an update for a log rafter came in and I finally had enough data in the mainframe to be able to print a custom report without asking for anything from the filing department. I was able to give this to the person requesting the status of the log raft in a few MINUTES instead of DAYS or even a WEEK. I was the only one doing this because I was the only one that had any real experience knowing what a mainframe could or couldn’t do in the billing department. I had even been questioning why we had a mainframe terminal on our desk in the first place until I thought to create the database and start entering the data.
Wait, isn’t this about Lotus 1=2-3? Yes, it is.
I still think entering everything into the mainframe was the better solution at the time because everything was centrally stored in the mainframe which was in a fireproof room and tape backups were taken off site every night to another fire proof building.
But a senior vice president had heard about IBM PCs, a VERY new thing at the time. And when he heard what I was doing he came over to find out exactly what I was doing. Then he went and bought an IBM PC or XT (I think the latter) and brought it into work, then went and got me and asked me to start entering all my data into this IBM PC with DOS 1.x and Lotus 1-2-3 1.x (this is where Lotus 1-2-3 comes in).
Now this PC wasn’t in a fire proof room so if the building had burned down the PC would have been destroyed. So I don’t think the SVP was thinking this all the way through. But I was a nobody and I was curious about this IBM PC. I’d used Atari 400 & 800 computers in school where I had learned to program in COBOL, FORTRAN, RPG, BASIC and other lesser known languages on a IBM Model 15d (?) mainframe from 1980 to 1982 and this was now 1983 and this logging company had an HP 3000 mini mainframe.
So why was I working in a billing department? Because Boeing laid off HUNDREDS of computer programmers in 1982 literally a few weeks before I graduated from a two year computer programming class. The company I had a job lined up for as a entry level programmer had called me and told me that I wasn’t needed after all because they had gotten an ex-Boeing programmer with several years of experience and they were paying them less than what they had agreed to pay me. Which is why I had take any job that I could get until the market changed.
But I spent a couple of weeks entering all my data into this IBM PC when the senior vice president went on vacation in Europe. My boss correctly felt that if all the data was entered into a computer they would no longer need all the billing clerks that were keeping track of log rafts. They wouldn’t need to store all that paper work in the file room either. My boss saw a bunch of lost jobs so my boss laid me off while the SVP was on vacation.
By the time the SVP got back I had a new job with better pay because I had noted to the temp agency I was working for what I had done at the logging company. When the SVP got back he found out that I had been laid off and from what I understood he had fired my former boss then tracked me down and tried to get me back. I told him I would go back IF I was to be paid the same pay I was getting at my new job AND I was given the chance to prove that I knew how to program computers and was given a job as an entry level programmer. I didn’t even care that I wouldn’t have made as much as I should have, I just wanted my foot in the door as a programmer but the SVP said no, he could train any monkey to enter data and hung up.
But that was my first entry into Lotus 1-2-3 and I wasn’t all that impressed since, as I said, I had been entering all my data into a database that I had created on the mainframe and I had created a custom report for that database which allowed me to very quickly create the exact report for the person requesting the update AND my data was in a computer in a fire proof room and backed up every night with tapes sent off site to another fire proof room. Lotus 1-2-3 couldn’t create the reports needed yet. I would still have had to either write up the report or also put the data in the mainframe (which is what I would have done) and printed off the report and given it to the requestor.
As the years went back at that new job (which was for a bank) I used Lotus 1-2-3 for many spreadsheets but I also created a lot of databases in many different database products like (in the beginning) dBase and R:Base (one of my all time favorites).
One Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets that I created was for a guy that scheduled ALL of the call centers for a national bank. He used a program purchased for this job. All programs can either be good or bad no matter what system it is on. This happened to be a bad program on a mainframe which was cumbersome to enter data into. I was able to get the record formats (list of fields and their sizes and data type (alpha, numeric, etc) and I was able to create a spreadsheet for him which I continued to improve and taught him to help improve the automation of that spreadsheet.
Why not just wrote a program in C for his PC? At the time I too was way over worked and didn’t have enough time to write yet another program right then. I was literally the full IT department working 12 to 14 hours a day supporting EVERYTHING about PCs for over 600 people, PC networks including ordering and surplussing, imaging, installing applications, maintenance, support, programing (creating new or updating/debugging/etc existing programs) on our mainframe and PCs. I was doing all of it for our state. When I left they replaced me with four people who didn’t do everything I had been doing. So I didn’t have time to write a program from scratch for him. Creating that spreadsheet and automating it took less time and I could quickly and easily make little but impactful updates in automation in that spreadsheet that helped him be more accurate and also save more time. There was no “network services department either. That was me too. I literally did or contracted for everything. My boss just signed everything I requested but then I was very cost conscience and oh, I also wrote up the disaster recovery plan for our data and programs and kept that up to date also.
I automated the hell out of my job, which is the only reason I was able to do everything that I did.
This spreadsheet that I created for him saved him literally over a dozen hours PER WEEK. He would enter the data into an increasingly automated spreadsheet that helped him know if he made an error by double-booking a person or giving them too many hours, or too many people at one location for any time period.
Once he was done creating the schedule for everyone he would upload the spreadsheet data up to the mainframe to that program’s database.
My ordering system was in Lotus 1-2-3 on my computer which was running IBM’s OS/2 OS. There was a version of Lotus 1-2-3 and R:Base and I could run the same data with the same automation on DOS, Windows or OS/2 and OS/2 was FAR better than Windows. If I had a month I wouldn’t be done listing all the advantages that OS/2 had over Windows.
In my spare time when I started working for that bank my boss’s son was into D&D. This was back in 1984. He worked for his mom too and we became friends and he introduced me to D&D. At the time it was with the blue and red boxed sets but he had (and later gave me) the original little original D&D first edition booklets. I still have all my D&D stuff. But the important part here is that I entered ALL of the D&D data from tables in ALL of the D&D books that I bought and he bought and put it into Lotus 1-2-3.
I was then able to create new characters in 1/10th the time it took to create them on paper. And I had been able to closely replicate what the AD&D 2nd Edition character sheets and for every item or spell, etc., all I had to do was enter the name of whatever and the spreadsheet automatically filled in everything for me so I knew what that character could do. And since I could have multiple spreadsheets in that one file I could store multiple characters together for each campaign.
This is just part of what I used Lotus 1-2-3 for. I STILL like it FAR better than Excel. With Excel you have Visual Basic and I’ve written over 200 programs in VB and it is ugly and I hate the language. I could give you a list of at least 30 languages that USED to know (health issues have really affected my memory to the point that I can’t program more than simple programs now) that were better. That’s just ones that I used to know. VB is ugly and is why I don’t like Excel.
Lotus 1-2-3 was killed off due to politics in IBM which hadn’t put enough money into promoting their office suite. Plus Microsoft was threatening to screw them on licensing fees for their (MS’s) products if IBM kept promoting their (IBM’s) office suite. Plus people in the mainframe team HATED all things PCs including the OS/2 and Lotus Office Suite groups and used their political clout to kill off those products. Well IBM licenses OS/2 to another company now that keeps OS/2 up to date so that it runs on new hardware. But it isn’t like they are keeping it “fresh”. It feels like an industrial product and in a way it is. But that’s another story.
Lotus 1-2-3 is my favorite all time spreadsheet program and I’ve used literally over two dozen of them. I have the boxes in my “computer room” to prove it. Along with my Lotus 1-2-3 and Lotus Office boxes as well as all my OS/2 (second favorite OS), BeOS (first favorite OS), MacOS (third favorite OS but is what I use now). I WISH that IBM had kept supporting and updating Lotus 1-2-3 or sold it off to another company for them to pick up the mantle and keep it going but they didn’t. For that I am deeply sad.
In my collection of hundreds of 3.5″ “floppies” I have floppies with my D&D character sheets in Lotus 1-2-3 along with a bunch (a few hundred?) other spreadsheets that I used to use. I don’t have a “PC” anymore and I don’t have any floppy drives to read the disks so I can’t see what is on them. And even if I could I don’t have any computers with Lotus 1-2-3 on them and haven’t since around 2006. I could build one and maybe I will and the newest version of OS/2 which should still be able to run Lotus 1-2-3 (I hope or it wouldn’t be worth it). But I will be setting up a computer to run Haiku which is the open source version of BeOS, my favorite OS. I just wish there was a version of Lotus 1-2-3 for Haiku. And yes, I’ve used other spreadsheets and like your first serious love, you can’t replace it with someone else. I will always love 1-2-3 for as long as I can remember what it is.
Wow this should be converted to a full OSnews post!
evert,
I think it may be record setting, haha.
I assume Sabon enjoys writing. so maybe he could actually write articles for osnews? Not sure osnews would be game, but long ago the format here was based on writing original content. Osnews was even be cited as a source by other major publications. While I miss that, sadly the business model for journalists broke down and it got phased out in favor of blogs that recount news (no offense Thom…I still appreciate what you do as editor!). I think Sabon announced he would be retiring, so maybe he’d be interested in contributing full articles and doing so from his happy place Haiku 🙂
Yes, I recently retired. Right now my brain is still thinking, “I’m on vacation” with the idea that this is going to end after two or three weeks. It will be a real retirement once my brain realizes that I REALLY don’t have to go back to work anymore. Note: I put in 40 years working in IT and 52 years out of my 62 years of life (counting jobs as a paper boy, super crappy restaurant jobs, bookkeeping and accounting jobs and then finally programming and >> everything << with PCs and PC networks.
Would I consider writing articles for OSNews? Give me six months to think about that. I really don't know yet what my life will be like and how much time I will actually have.
I know and understand that Thom Holwerda didn't ask me to write articles, just that evert and Alfman suggested it. Thank you for thinking my writing would be something you would be interested in.
“I assume Sabon enjoys writing”.
Yes, I very much enjoy writing. Is it just something I like? Is it a passion? I’d say it is like breathing. Trying to not breath for me is like trying to not write. If I don’t write I will start feeling sick only a couple of days. Writing is a release for me. On an average day I’ll write over 10 thousand words through I’ve had days when I’m barely done anything else for twelve hours when I’m _really_ inspired. Does that answer that question? (smile)