Anthony J. Pennings, PhD

WRITINGS ON DIGITAL ECONOMICS, ENERGY STRATEGIES, AND GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS

The Digital Spreadsheet: Interface to Space-Time, and Beyond?

The digital spreadsheet, a visual interface, uses language and numerical information organized for intelligibility and uses media and mathematical formulas to initiate horizontal and vertical causation. The spreadsheet interfaces the conscious agent with space-time and the quantum realm to operate in the space-time reality and to “summon” new realities through the acts of writing and measurement.

Digital Spreadsheets – Part 5 – Numeracy and the Power of Zero

The zero is an extraordinary cognitive invention that has been central to the quantitative workings of the spreadsheet. In conjunction with Indo-Arabic numerals and double-entry accounting techniques, the spreadsheet has been crucial to the rise of modern capitalism and that peculiar historical manifestation, the contemporary corporation.

Apple’s GUI and the Creation of the Microsoft’s Excel Spreadsheet Application

Microsoft’s famous spreadsheet application, Excel, was originally designed for Apple’s Macintosh personal computer. This post explores the beginning years of the personal computer and its transition to its more modern interface pioneered by Apple and its Macintosh computer. This transition opened the way for new software innovations, particularly the development of the Excel spreadsheet application […]

TIME Magazine’s “Machine of the Year”

The Apple II was quite a success when it was introduced in 1977 with sales of US$770,000 in its first year. Its growth over the next few years, however, was tremendous. Revenues hit $7.9 million in its second year of operation and $49 million in 1979. Its founders, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, were soon […]

A First Pre-VisiCalc Attempt at Electronic Spreadsheets

Computerized spreadsheets were conceived in the early 1960s when Richard Mattessich at the University of California at Berkeley conceptualized the electronic simulation of business accounting techniques in his Simulation of the Firm through a Budget Computer Program (1964). Mattessich envisaged the use of “accounting matrices” to provide a rectangular array of bookkeeping figures that would […]

Lotus 1-2-3 – A Star is Born

It was during the November of 1982 on the giant floor of the Comdex show in Las Vegas that Lotus 1-2-3 would first make its mark. While VisiCalc for the Apple II had shown both the viability of digital spreadsheets and the new “microcomputers,” Lotus 1-2-3 showed that spreadsheets would become indispensable for modern organizations […]

Digital Spreadsheets – Part 5 – Ease and Epistemology

To pick up the story, I started this analysis of the spreadsheet looking at the emergence of Lotus 1-2-3 within the context of the 1980s. This included the importance of the personal computer and the Reagan Revolution – characterized the by the commercialization of Cold War technologies and the globalization and increasing financialization of individual […]

Microsoft and the IBM PC Case Study: The Deal of the Century

The microcomputer was starting to become popular in the late 1970s and finally caught the attention of IBM. Initially resistant, “Big Blue” became concerned that they were “losing the hearts and minds” of their clients. However, when the Apple II started to show up in many corporate environments, IBM officials were concerned about the encroachment […]

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  • About Me

    Professor at State University of New York (SUNY) Korea since 2016. Moved to Austin, Texas in August 2012 to join the Digital Media Management program at St. Edwards University. Spent the previous decade on the faculty at New York University teaching and researching information systems, digital economics, and strategic communications.

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    apennings70@gmail.com
    anthony.pennings@sunykorea.ac.kr

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    The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of my employers, past or present.