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How many of you have used[br]an electronic spreadsheet,

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like Microsoft Excel?[br]Very good.

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Now how many of you have run a business[br]with a spreadsheet by hand,

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like my dad did for his small[br]printing business in Philadelphia?

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A lot less.

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Well, that's the way it was done[br]for hundreds of years.

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In early 1978, I started working[br]on an idea that eventually became VisiCalc.

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And the next year it shipped[br]running on something new

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called an Apple II Personal Computer.

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You could tell that things[br]had really changed when six years later,

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the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial

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that assumed you knew what VisiCalc was[br]and maybe even were using it.

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Steve Jobs back in 1990 said that

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spreadsheets propelled[br]the industry forward.

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VisiCalc propelled the success of Apple[br]more than any other single event.

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On a more personal note,

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Steve said that if VisiCalc had been written[br]for some other computer,

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you'd be interviewing[br]somebody else right now.

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So, VisiCalc was instrumental in getting[br]personal computers on business desks.

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How did it come about? What was it?

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What did I go through[br]to make it be what it was?

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Well, I first learned to program[br]back in 1966, when I was 15 --

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just a couple months after[br]this photo was taken.

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Few high schoolers had access[br]to computers in those days

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but through luck[br]and an awful lot of perseverance,

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I was able to get[br]computer time around the city.

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After sleeping in the mud at Woodstock,[br]I went off the MIT to go to college,

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where to make money,[br]I worked on the Multics Project.

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Now Multics was a trailblazing[br]interactive time-sharing system.

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Have you heard of the[br]Lenix ad Unix operating systems?

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They came from Multics.

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I worked on the Multics versions

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of what are known as[br]interpreted computer languages,

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that are used by people[br]in non-computer fields

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to do their calculations while seated[br]at a computer terminal.

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After I graduated from MIT,

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I went to work for[br]Digital Equipment Corporation.

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At DEC, I worked on software for[br]the new area of computerized typesetting.

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I helped newspapers replace[br]their reporters' typewriters

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with computer terminals.

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I'd write software[br]and then I'd go out in the field

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to places like the Kansas City Star where[br]I would train users and get feedback.

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Now this was real world experience[br]that is quite different

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than what I saw in the lab at MIT.

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After that, I was project leader

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of the software for DEC's first[br]word processor, again a new field.

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Like with typesetting, the important thing[br]was crafting a user interface

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that was both natural and efficient[br]for non-computer people to use.

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After I was at DEC, I went to work[br]for a small company

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that made microprocessor based electronic[br]cash registers for the fast food industry.

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But, I had always wanted to start[br]a company with my friend Bob Frankston

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that I met on the Multics project at MIT.

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So I decided to go back to school to learn[br]as much as I could about business.

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And in the Fall of 1977, I entered the[br]MBA program at Harvard Business School.

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I was one of a few students who[br]had a background in computer programming.

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There's a picture of me from the yearbook[br]sitting in the front row.

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Now at Harvard, [br]we learned by the case method.

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We do about three cases a day.

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Cases consist of up to a few dozen pages[br]describing particular business situations.

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They often have exhibits, and exhibits[br]often have words and numbers

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laid out in ways that make sense[br]for the particular situation.

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There usually all somewhat different.

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Here's my homework.

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Again, numbers, words, laid out[br]in ways that made sense.

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Lots of calculations --[br]we got really close to our calculators.

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In fact, here's my calculator.

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For Halloween, I went[br]dressed up as a calculator.

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At the beginning of each class,[br]the professor would call on somebody

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to present the case.

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What they would do is[br]they would explain what was going on

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and then dictate information[br]that the professor would transcribe

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onto the many motorized blackboards[br]in the front of the class

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and then we'd have a discussion.

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The frustrating thing is when[br]you've done all of your homework,

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you come in the next day only to find out[br]that you made an error

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and all of the other numbers[br]you did were wrong,

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and you couldn't participate as well.

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And we were marked by class participation.

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So, sitting there with 87 other people[br]in the class, I got to daydream a lot.

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Most programmers in those days[br]worked on mainframes,

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building things like inventory systems,[br]payroll systems and bill paying systems.

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But I had worked on[br]interactive word processing[br]

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and on-demand personal computation.

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Instead of thinking about[br]paper print outs and punch cards,

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I imagined a magic blackboard

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that if you erased one number[br]and wrote a new thing in,

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all of the other numbers[br]would automatically change,

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like word processing with numbers.

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I imagined that my calculator had[br]mouse hardware on the bottom of it

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and a head-up display like in a fighter plane.

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And I could type some numbers in[br]and circle it and press the sum button.

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And right in the middle of a negotiation,[br]I'd be able to get the answer.

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Now I just had to take my fantasy[br]and turn it into reality.

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My father taught me about prototyping.

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He showed me mock-ups[br]that he'd make

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to figure out the placement[br]on the page

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for the things for the brochures[br]he was printing.

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And he'd use it to get feedback[br]from customers

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and OKs before he sent the job[br]off to the presses.

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The act of making a simple, working[br]version of what you're trying to build,

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forces you to uncover key problems.

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And it lets you find solutions to[br]those problems much less expensively.

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So I decided to build a prototype.

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I went to a video terminal connected to[br]Harvard's time-sharing system

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and got to work.

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One of the first problems[br]that I ran into was:

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how do you represent values in formulas?

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Let me show you what I mean.

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I thought that you would point somewhere,[br]type in some words,

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then type in somewhere else,[br]and put in some numbers

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and some more numbers,[br]point where you want the answer.

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And then point to the first, press minus;[br]point to the second, and get the result.

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The problem was,[br]what should I put in the formula?

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It had to be something[br]the computer what knew to put in,

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and if you looked at the formula,

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you needed to know[br]where on the screen it referred to.

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So the first thing I thought was[br]the programmer way of doing it,

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the first time you pointed to somewhere,

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the computer would ask you[br]to type in a unique name. [br]

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It became pretty clear, pretty fast that[br]that was going to be too tedious.

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The computer had to automatically make up[br]the name and put it inside.

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So I thought, why not make it be the order[br]in which you create them.

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I tried that. Value 1, Value 2.[br]Pretty quickly I saw that if you had more

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than a few values, you'd never remember[br]on the screen where things were.

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Then I said, why not instead of[br]allowing you to put values anywhere,

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I'll restrict you to a grid?[br]Then when you pointed to a cell,

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the computer could put[br]the row and column in as a name.

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And, if I did it like a map and put ABC[br]across the top and numbers along the side,

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if you saw B7 in a formula, you'd know[br]exactly where it was on the screen.

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If you had to type the formula yourself,[br]you'd know what to do.

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Restricting you to a grid[br]helped solve my problem.

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It also opened up new capabilities,[br]like the ability to have ranges of cells.

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But it wasn't too restrictive --

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you could still put any value,[br]any formula, in any cell.

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And that's the way we do it to this day,[br]almost 40 years later.

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My friend Bob and I decided that we were[br]going to build this product together.

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I did more work figuring out exactly how[br]the program was supposed to behave.[br]

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I wrote a reference card[br]to act as documentation.

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It also helped me ensure that[br]the user interface I was defining

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could be explained concisely[br]and clearly to regular people.

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Bob worked in the attic of the apartment[br]he rented in Arlington, Massachusettes.

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This is the inside of the attic.

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Bob bought time on the MIT Multics System

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to write computer code[br]on a terminal like this.

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And then he would download test versions[br]to a borrowed Apple II over a phone line

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using an acoustic coupler[br]and then we would test.

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Now, for one of these tests I prepared[br]for this case about the Pepsi challenge.

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Print wasn't working yet,[br]so I had to copy everything down.

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Save wasn't working,[br]so every time it crashed,

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I had to type in all of the formulas[br]again, over and over again.

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The next day in class, I raised my hand.[br]I got called on and I presented the case.

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I did five-year projections.[br]I did all sorts of different scenarios.

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I aced the case.[br]VisiCalc was already useful.

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The professor said, how did you do it?

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Well, I didn't want to tell him[br]about our secret program, so I said,

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well I took this and added this and [br]multiplied by this and subtracted that.

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He said, well, why didn't you use a ratio?

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Hah! A ratio that wouldn't[br]have been as exact.

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What I didn't say was,[br]divide isn't working yet.

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Eventually, though, we did finish[br]enough of VisiCalc to be able

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to show it to the public.[br]My dad printed up a sample reference card

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that we could use as marketing material.

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In June of 1979, our publisher announced[br]VisiCalc to the world, in a small booth

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at the giant National Computer Conference[br]in New York City.

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Now The New York Times had[br]a humorous article about the conference.

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"The machines perform what seem[br]religious rites...

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even as the believers gather,[br]the painters in the Colosseum sign room

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are adding to the Pantheon,[br]carefully lettering VisiCalc

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in giant black on yellow.[br]All Hail Visicalc.

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(Gasp) New York Times. [br]All Hail VisiCalc.

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That was the last mention of[br]the electronic spreadsheet in

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the popular business press[br]for about two years.

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Most people didn't get it yet.[br]But some did.

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In October of 1979, we shipped VisiCalc.

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It came in a packaging[br]that looked like this,

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and it looked like this[br]running on the Apple II.

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And the rest, as they say, is history.

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Now, there's an awful lot[br]more to this story,

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but that'll have to wait for another day.

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One thing, though, Harvard remembers.[br]Here's that classroom.

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They put up a plaque to commemorate[br]what happened there. (Applause)

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But it also serves as a reminder --[br]that you too should take

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your unique background, skills and needs[br]and build prototypes to discover

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and work out the key problems[br]and through that change the world.

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Thank you.