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.

VisiCalc and the Rise of the PC Spreadsheet

The big computer mainframes of the 1960s and even the minicomputers of the time were not accessible enough to provide the type of direct experience needed to play with the numbers by making multiple changes and producing various scenarios that would make the spreadsheets so valuable later on. It was the microprocessor-enabled PCs that made possible the successive lineage of major digital spreadsheet applications – VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft’s Excel, and Google Sheets that transformed modern organizational practices.

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

TIME Magazine’s “Machine of the Year”

The new PCs were so successful that TIME magazine decided to honor them. Originally, it planned to name Steve Jobs as its “Man of the Year”. But because sales of other PCs were rising so dramatically, they changed their mind. Instead, in a January 1983 issue, TIME decided to name the “Personal Computer” its “Machine of the Year.” Although the magazine’s yearly acknowledgment generally goes to real people and was originally scheduled to go to Apple’s Steve Jobs, the dramatic sales of the IBM PC at the end of the year convinced them to change their minds.

A First Pre-VisiCalc Attempt at Electronic Spreadsheets

Despite the increasing processing power of the mainframes and minis, and new interactivity due to timesharing and the use of keyboards and cathode ray screens, the use of computerized spreadsheets never increased significantly until the introduction of the personal computer. It was only after the spreadsheet idea was rediscovered in the context of the microprocessing leap made in the next decade that Mattesich’s ideas would be acknowledged.

Lotus 1-2-3 – A Star is Born

Just as VisiCalc helped Apple’s sales, Lotus 1-2-3’s popularity helped IBM’s PC sales take off. Launched in the late summer of 1981, IBM faced stiff competition in the Apple II and a host of new computer manufacturers using the CP/M operating system. Although IBM had name recognition, particularly in the business world, it still needed the kind of practical application that would justify its expense. Lotus 1-2-3 would supply the incentive to put a PC on top of every desk in the business world.

Digital Spreadsheets – Part 5 – Ease and Epistemology

In this post, I discuss how spreadsheets in conjunction with other forms of financial and managerial representation not only produce the ongoing flows of knowledge that run the modern economy but have created a technologically-enhanced epistemology for garnering resources, registering value, and allocating wealth.

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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.