0:00:00.760,0:00:03.735
How many of you have used[br]an electronic spreadsheet,

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like Microsoft Excel?

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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,[br]I started working on an idea

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that eventually became VisiCalc.

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And the next year it shipped

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running on something new[br]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

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said that "spreadsheets[br]propelled 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, "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?

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What was it? 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[br]after 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 to MIT to go to college,

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

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

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Have you heard of the Linux[br]and 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[br]as interpreted computer languages,

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that are used by people[br]in noncomputer fields

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to do their calculations[br]while seated 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

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for the new area[br]of computerized typesetting.

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I helped newspapers[br]replace their reporters' typewriters

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with computer terminals.

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I'd write software

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and then I'd go out in the field[br]to places like the Kansas City Star,

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where I would train users[br]and get feedback.

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This was real-world experience

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that is quite different[br]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 noncomputer people to use.

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After I was at DEC, I went[br]to work 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,

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I entered the MBA program[br]at Harvard Business School.

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I was one of the few[br]percentage of students

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who had a background[br]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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(Laughter)

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

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We'd 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,[br]and exhibits 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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They're usually all somewhat different.

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Here's my homework.

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Again, numbers, words,[br]laid out 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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(Laughter)

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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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One of the really frustrating things[br]is when you've done all your homework,

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you come in the next day[br]only to find out 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[br]on interactive word processing

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and on-demand personal computation.

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Instead of thinking[br]about paper printouts 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[br]had mouse hardware on the bottom of it

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and a head-up display,[br]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

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that he'd make to figure out[br]the placement on the page

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

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

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type in some words,[br]then type in some somewhere else,

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put in some numbers 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,

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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 knew what 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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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.

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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[br]make up the name and put it inside.

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

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I tried that. Value 1, value 2.

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Pretty quickly I saw[br]that if you had more than a few values

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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?

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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,

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you'd know exactly[br]where it was on the screen.

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And if you had to type the formula[br]in yourself, 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[br]how the program was supposed to behave.

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

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It also helped me ensure[br]that 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, Massachusetts.

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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

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over a phone line[br]using an acoustic coupler,

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and then we would test.

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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.

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(Laughter)

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So I said, "I took this and added this

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and multiplied by this[br]and subtracted that."

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He said, "Well,[br]why didn't you use a ratio?"

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I said, "Hah! A ratio --[br]that wouldn't have been as exact!"

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

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(Laughter)

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

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to be able to show it to the public.

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My dad printed up a sample reference card

0:10:01.440,0:10:03.440
that we could use as marketing material.

0:10:04.280,0:10:10.056
In June of 1979, our publisher[br]announced VisiCalc to the world,

0:10:10.080,0:10:14.200
in a small booth at the giant National[br]Computer Conference in New York City.

0:10:14.800,0:10:18.960
The New York Times had[br]a humorous article about the conference.

0:10:19.480,0:10:21.936
"The machines perform[br]what seem religious rites ...

0:10:21.960,0:10:23.341
Even as the believers gather,

0:10:23.365,0:10:26.461
the painters in the Coliseum sign room[br]are adding to the pantheon,

0:10:26.485,0:10:29.656
carefully lettering 'VISICALC'[br]in giant black on yellow.

0:10:29.680,0:10:31.496
All hail VISICALC!"

0:10:31.520,0:10:35.096
(Gasp) New York Times:[br]"All hail VISICALC."

0:10:35.120,0:10:36.616
(Laughter)

0:10:36.640,0:10:40.896
That was the last mention[br]of the electronic spreadsheet

0:10:40.920,0:10:44.816
in the popular business press[br]for about two years.

0:10:44.840,0:10:46.976
Most people didn't get it yet.

0:10:47.000,0:10:48.200
But some did.

0:10:48.920,0:10:53.120
In October of 1979, we shipped VisiCalc.

0:10:53.880,0:10:56.696
It came in packaging[br]that looked like this.

0:10:56.720,0:10:59.200
And it looked like this[br]running on the Apple II.

0:11:00.000,0:11:01.960
And the rest, as they say, is history.

0:11:02.360,0:11:04.456
Now, there's an awful lot[br]more to this story,

0:11:04.480,0:11:06.536
but that'll have to wait for another day.

0:11:06.560,0:11:08.800
One thing, though, Harvard remembers.

0:11:09.400,0:11:10.600
Here's that classroom.

0:11:11.240,0:11:14.680
They put up a plaque[br]to commemorate what happened there.

0:11:15.640,0:11:18.040
(Applause)

0:11:24.400,0:11:27.336
But it also serves as a reminder

0:11:27.360,0:11:32.856
that you, too, should take[br]your unique backgrounds, skills and needs

0:11:32.880,0:11:38.136
and build prototypes to discover[br]and work out the key problems,

0:11:38.160,0:11:40.280
and through that, change the world.

0:11:41.040,0:11:42.256
Thank you.

0:11:42.280,0:11:46.880
(Applause)