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I bought a used VisiCalc box on eBay to run it on my restored Apple II and experience what it was like to use it back in a day on original hardware. The qualit
by andreybaskov 1y ago
I bought a used VisiCalc box on eBay to run it on my restored Apple II and experience what it was like to use it back in a day on original hardware.
The quality of documentation is something I haven’t see in the last decade or two. It comes in a binder, well organized, thought out with good examples and no expectation of prior knowledge. It’s a joy to read. The only documentation I read thats better than this was the original Apple II Basic manual.
And the best part is it’s all keyboard based. Is there something like vim but for spreadsheets?
- c22 1y agoThere's VisiData [https://www.visidata.org/ https://www.visidata.org/]
- kragen 1y agoVisiData isn't a spreadsheet, even though it looks like one.
- c22 1y agoTrue, but it might scratch some of the same itches.
- andreybaskov 1y agoThanks, that looks interesting. It looks more like a data grid, but anything that has keyboard shortcuts to work with data is awesome. I’ll give it a try.
- buescher 1y agoLotus was great from the keyboard. People who are very good at Excel do use the keyboard heavily and it's a joy to watch.
- listenallyall 1y agoUnless they removed it in recent releases, Excel has an option to mimic Lotus 1-2-3 keyboard shortcuts.
- ChristopherDrum 1y agoAuthor here. Yes, I’m glad someone agrees with my assessment on the documentation quality. It pulls off a pretty amazing hat-trick, considering it was the first exposure anyone had with such a program. `sc` is the only option I’m aware of that is like a “spreadsheet vim” though there are likely others. Interestingly enough, the original name of sc was . . . wait for it . . . vc