Spreadsheet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis

and storage of data in tabular form.[1][2][3] Spreadsheets were developed as
computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets.[4] The program operates on
data entered in cells of a table. Each cell may contain either numeric or text data, or
the results of formulas that automatically calculate and display a value based on the
contents of other cells. The term spreadsheet may also refer to one such electronic
document.[5][6][7]

Spreadsheet users can adjust any stored value and observe the effects on
calculated values. This makes the spreadsheet useful for "what-if" analysis since
many cases can be rapidly investigated without manual recalculation. Modern
spreadsheet software can have multiple interacting sheets and can display data
either as text and numerals or in graphical form.[8]

Besides performing basic arithmetic and mathematical functions, modern

spreadsheets provide built-in functions for common financial accountancy and
statistical operations. Such calculations as net present value or standard
deviation can be applied to tabular data with a pre-programmed function in a
formula. Spreadsheet programs also provide conditional expressions, functions to
convert between text and numbers, and functions that operate on strings of text.

Spreadsheets have replaced paper-based systems throughout the business world.

Although they were first developed for accounting or bookkeeping tasks, they now
are used extensively in any context where tabular lists are built, sorted, and shared.

Basics[edit]

LANPAR, available in 1969,[9] was the first electronic spreadsheet on mainframe and
time sharing computers. LANPAR was an acronym: LANguage for Programming
Arrays at Random.[9] VisiCalc (1979) was the first electronic spreadsheet on a
microcomputer,[10] and it helped turn the Apple II computer into a popular and widely
used personal computer. Lotus 1-2-3 was the leading spreadsheet when DOS was
the dominant operating system.[11] Microsoft Excel now has the largest market share
on the Windows and Macintosh platforms.[12][13][14] A spreadsheet program is a standard
feature of an office productivity suite. In 2006 Google launched a beta release
spreadsheet web application, this is currently known as Google Sheets and one of
the applications provided in Google Drive.[15]

A spreadsheet consists of a table of cells arranged into rows and columns and
referred to by the X and Y locations. X locations, the columns, are normally
represented by letters, "A," "B," "C," etc., while rows are normally represented by
numbers, 1, 2, 3, etc. A single cell can be referred to by addressing its row and
column, "C10". This electronic concept of cell references was first introduced in
LANPAR (Language for Programming Arrays at Random) (co-invented by Rene
Pardo and Remy Landau) and a variant used in VisiCalc and known as "A1
notation". Additionally, spreadsheets have the concept of a range, a group of cells,
normally contiguous. For instance, one can refer to the first ten cells in the first
column with the range "A1:A10". LANPAR innovated forward referencing/natural
order calculation which didn't re-appear until Lotus 123 and Microsoft's MultiPlan
Version 2.

In modern spreadsheet applications, several spreadsheets, often known

as worksheets or simply sheets, are gathered together to form a workbook. A
workbook is physically represented by a file containing all the data for the book, the
sheets, and the cells with the sheets. Worksheets are normally represented by tabs
that flip between pages, each one containing one of the sheets,
although Numbers changes this model significantly. Cells in a multi-sheet book add
the sheet name to their reference, for instance, "Sheet 1!C10". Some systems
extend this syntax to allow cell references to different workbooks.

Users interact with sheets primarily through the cells. A given cell can hold data by
simply entering it in, or a formula, which is normally created by preceding the text
with an equals sign. Data might include the string of text hello world , the
number 5 or the date 16-Dec-91 . A formula would begin with the equals sign, =5*3 ,
but this would normally be invisible because the display shows the result of the
calculation, 15 in this case, not the formula itself. This may lead to confusion in
some cases.

The key feature of spreadsheets is the ability for a formula to refer to the contents of
other cells, which may, in turn, be the result of a formula. To make such a formula,
one replaces a number with a cell reference. For instance, the formula =5*C10 would
produce the result of multiplying the value in cell C10 by the number 5. If C10 holds
the value 3 the result will be 15 . But C10 might also hold its formula referring to
other cells, and so on.

The ability to chain formulas together is what gives a spreadsheet its power. Many
problems can be broken down into a series of individual mathematical steps, and
these can be assigned to individual formulas in cells. Some of these formulas can
apply to ranges as well, like the SUM function that adds up all the numbers within a
range.

Spreadsheets share many principles and traits of databases, but spreadsheets and
databases are not the same things. A spreadsheet is essentially just one table,
whereas a database is a collection of many tables with machine-readable semantic
relationships. While it is true that a workbook that contains three sheets is indeed a
file containing multiple tables that can interact with each other, it lacks the relational
structure of a database. Spreadsheets and databases are interoperable—sheets can
be imported into databases to become tables within them, and database queries can
be exported into spreadsheets for further analysis.

A spreadsheet program is one of the main components of an office productivity suite,

which usually also contains a word processor, a presentation program, and
a database management system. Programs within a suite use similar commands for
similar functions. Usually, sharing data between the components is easier than with
a non-integrated collection of functionally equivalent programs. This was particularly
an advantage at a time when many personal computer systems used text-mode
displays and commands instead of a graphical user interface.

History[edit]
Paper spreadsheets[edit]
Humans have organized data into tables, that is, grids of columns and rows, since
ancient times. The Babylonians used clay tablets to store data as far back as 1800
BCE.[16] Other examples can be found in book-keeping ledgers and astronomical
records.[17]

Since at least 1906 the term "spread sheet" has been used in accounting to mean a
grid of columns and rows in a ledger.[18][19] The word "spreadsheet" came from
"spread" in its sense of a newspaper or magazine item (text or graphics) that covers
two facing pages, extending across the centerfold and treating the two pages as one
large page.[20][21] The compound word 'spread-sheet' came to mean the format used to
present book-keeping ledgers—with columns for categories of expenditures across
the top, invoices listed down the left margin, and the amount of each payment in the
cell where its row and column intersect—which were, traditionally, a "spread" across
facing pages of a bound ledger (book for keeping accounting records) or on
oversized sheets of paper (termed 'analysis paper') ruled into rows and columns in
that format and approximately twice as wide as ordinary paper.[22][failed verification]

Electronic spreadsheets[edit]
Batch spreadsheet report generator BSRG[edit]
A batch "spreadsheet" is indistinguishable from a batch compiler with added input
data, producing an output report, i.e., a 4GL or conventional, non-interactive, batch
computer program. However, this concept of an electronic spreadsheet was outlined
in the 1961 paper "Budgeting Models and System Simulation" by Richard
Mattessich.[23] The subsequent work by Mattessich (1964a, Chpt. 9, Accounting and
Analytical Methods) and its companion volume, Mattessich (1964b, Simulation of the
Firm through a Budget Computer Program) applied computerized spreadsheets to
accounting and budgeting systems (on mainframe computers programmed
in FORTRAN IV). These batch Spreadsheets dealt primarily with the addition or
subtraction of entire columns or rows (of input variables), rather than individual cells.

In 1962, this concept of the spreadsheet, called BCL for Business Computer
Language, was implemented on an IBM 1130[dubious – discuss] and in 1963 was ported to
an IBM 7040 by R. Brian Walsh at Marquette University, Wisconsin. This program
was written in Fortran. Primitive timesharing was available on those machines. In
1968 BCL was ported by Walsh to the IBM 360/67 timesharing machine
at Washington State University. It was used to assist in the teaching of finance to
business students. Students were able to take information prepared by
the professor and manipulate it to represent it and show ratios etc. In 1964, a book
entitled Business Computer Language was written by Kimball, Stoffells and Walsh
and both the book and program were copyrighted in 1966 and years later
that copyright was renewed.[24]

Applied Data Resources had a FORTRAN preprocessor called Empires.

In the late 1960s, Xerox used BCL to develop a more sophisticated version for their
timesharing system.

LANPAR spreadsheet compiler[edit]

A key invention in the development of electronic spreadsheets was made by Rene K.
Pardo and Remy Landau, who filed in 1970 U.S. Patent 4,398,249 on a spreadsheet
automatic natural order calculation algorithm. While the patent was initially rejected
by the patent office as being a purely mathematical invention, following 12 years of
appeals, Pardo and Landau won a landmark court case at the Predecessor Court of
the Federal Circuit (CCPA), overturning the Patent Office in 1983 — establishing that
"something does not cease to become patentable merely because the point of
novelty is in an algorithm." However, in 1995 a federal district court ruled the patent
unenforceable due to inequitable conduct by the inventors during the application
process.[25] The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld that
decision in 1996.[26]

The actual software was called LANPAR — LANguage for Programming Arrays at
Random.[note 1] This was conceived and entirely developed in the summer of 1969,
following Pardo and Landau's recent graduation from Harvard University. Co-
inventor Rene Pardo recalls that he felt that one manager at Bell Canada should not
have to depend on programmers to program and modify budgeting forms, and he
thought of letting users type out forms in any order and having an electronic
computer calculate results in the right order ("Forward Referencing/Natural Order
Calculation"). Pardo and Landau developed and implemented the software in 1969.[27]

LANPAR was used by Bell Canada, AT&T, and the 18 operating telephone
companies nationwide for their local and national budgeting operations. LANPAR
was also used by General Motors. Its uniqueness was Pardo's co-invention
incorporating forward referencing/natural order calculation (one of the first "non-
procedural" computer languages)[28] as opposed to left-to-right, top to bottom
sequence for calculating the results in each cell that was used
by VisiCalc, SuperCalc, and the first version of MultiPlan. Without forward
referencing/natural order calculation, the user had to refresh the spreadsheet until
the values in all cells remained unchanged. Once the cell values stayed constant,
the user was assured that there were no remaining forward references within the
spreadsheet.