A look back: LANPAR, the first spreadsheet
a day ago
- #spreadsheet
- #technology
- #history
- LANPAR was the first spreadsheet, predating VisiCalc by ten years.
- Developed by Rene Pardo and Remy Landau at Bell Canada to allow managers to create their own budget forms.
- LANPAR used a grid of cells (boxes) referenced by row and column numbers (e.g., box 101 for row 1, column 01).
- Supported up to 999 rows and 99 columns, with cells containing INPUT values, constants (K), or calculations.
- Calculations could include addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and exponentiation.
- Introduced forward references, allowing calculations to reference unresolved cells in a loop.
- Patent filed in 1970, granted in 1983, now expired.
- Forward references became a standard feature in spreadsheets like Lotus 1-2-3 in the 1980s.