On Tuesday, with no fanfare, IBM closed the last chapter in the life of one of the most iconic early computer programs, Lotus 1-2-3, when it withdrew support for the final build of the software.
IBM Lotus 123 Millennium Edition, IBM Lotus SmartSuite 9.x, and Organizer have now officially all passed their end of life support date and, according to IBM's website, "No service extensions will be offered" ( http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?subtype=ca&infotype=an&appname=iSource&supplier=897&letternum=ENUS913-091 ) – not that anyone is seriously using the spreadsheet any more.
It's a sadly muted end for what was, at one time, the world's premier spreadsheet. Lotus 1-2-3 was one of the first applications that made IBM's original PC a serious business tool, but it fell by the wayside due to poor coding decisions, failure to adapt, and the crushing tactics of Microsoft.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by anubi on Friday October 03 2014, @10:58AM
Go ahead and laugh if you wish, but many years ago, I started doing my income tax in Dan Bricklin's VisiCalc.
Now, mind you, my taxes are not very complicated.
But, I already had a box for everything, and all I had to do is put this year's number in the last year's box.
I have done this for about 30 years or so.
I keep telling myself to do something about it, but I will still fire up VisiCalc for another run each year.
Yes, I know VisiCalc's support is long since gone. Actually I never needed support at all. It just worked.
And its still working.
The problem does not seem to be VisiCalc's lifetime, rather it seems soon I will no longer be able to get the forms to transcribe the numbers into to mail to IRS.
Dan, you did a great job on that little program... I sure have enjoyed using it... its a really nice little tool.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @03:21PM
How about it? Lotus 1-2-3 was to IBM PC what Visicalc was to Apple II.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @07:02PM
I tried using a Visigoth to do my taxes once, but he generally made an awful mess of things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @07:10PM
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday October 04 2014, @06:47AM
Why would anybody laugh at you for using a tool that works for you? Even though I have Office 2K7 I'm still running my beloved Office 2K on my desktop AND my netbook...why? Why would I not? Its fast, has a low footprint, does everything I need it to and is solid as a rock. But I feel this way about any good tool, if it ain't broke don't fix it!
Of course this is NOT true of Lotus 1-2-3 because what they got rid of today was NOT Lotus but LINO, a cheap copy of Open Office skinned to look similar to the old Lotus. if you were gonna run LINO you might as well just went to the source and used OO or LO instead, because LINO was just a reskinning it was always behind the rel OO/LO releases and wasn't feature complete, last IU checked they just ripped Base out of OO before releasing as LINO.
So good riddance to another reskin of a piece of FOSS painted up to look like something else, reminds me of that Vista Linux that came out a few years back, why not just run the real deal instead of a knockoff that is only skin deep?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday October 04 2014, @09:15AM
I figured it was at least good for a chuckle that someone out there was still using some little program written to run DOS 1.0... The whole program is about 30Kbytes. I am pretty sure its written in assembler. Just like the FutureNet schematic capture program I still use ( Albeit I admit I am falling in love with Eagle.)
Funny thing, the executable is still on the web. Right Here! [bricklin.com]
My first one had copy protection, and I ran it under DOS 3.3, but the one I link to above is the same one I use now. I liked it because it was so damned simple.
I keep the executable and so far about 30 years of data files on one 1.44Mb floppy disk. I keep two copies in the little binder I store paper copies of my last three years returns. Usually, the VC.com file is on the machine, but if it isn't, there are multiple copies of it on the disks. I just did not want my tax data left laying around in my machine; once the job was done, I wanted to remove the disks, print the returns, mail to IRS, insert copies and return disks to binder until next year when I do the same again.
Some more old DOS programs I can't seem to shake are MathCad, Borland Eureka, Borland TurboC++ ( which is my quickie way of checking out my Arduino code ), and ( God forbid!!!) GWBasic! Damned near anything text based. I even have "TCP/IP Lean" protocol stacks written in TurboC++ so I can check for expected behaviour on the internet before downloading similar code into embedded systems - because the most I am apt to do is nothing more than send and receive a very specific packet structure and I do not want to spend a lot of overhead implementing the entire suite when all I need to do is exchange a few text strings. Just enough code to make and receive a packet the routers will route is good enough for me. Completely nonstandard contents, but as long as the addressing is right, I guess it doesn't matter much what in the envelope, as my code is at both ends. I just treat the internet like I do the post office.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Friday October 03 2014, @11:28AM
I was with IBM when they finally gave up on using Lotus SmartSuite internally (back when we were probably the only major company using it) and finally bought a site license for MS office (previously, only externally facing roles got office, because if you send a client a WordPro file, you got laughed out of the room. This was 2001 or 2002. When even the people who make the software give up on it, you know the writing's on the wall.
I'm surprised it's hung on this long.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by opinionated_science on Friday October 03 2014, @12:24PM
perhaps it should be open sourced? It would seem there is something that could be learned...
(Score: 3, Informative) by MrGuy on Friday October 03 2014, @12:58PM
This is IBM we're talking about. It's been a few years since I checked the standings, but for over a decade they led the yearly "number of patents filed" list. They accumulate IP like nobody's business. They're not likely to give something away unless there's a clear business benefit to themselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jcross on Friday October 03 2014, @01:46PM
Yes, but they are also very supportive of open source projects, and IIRC used their huge IP portfolio to counterattack against SCO in defense of Linux. My guess is that if they don't open source 1-2-3, it will be out of inertia rather than greed.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MrGuy on Friday October 03 2014, @03:11PM
IBM embraced Linux because they saw it as an opportunity to sell products and services on top of Linux, not out of altruism.
And you're wrong on IVM's relationship to SCO. SCO are the ones who sued IBM, alleging IBM illegally contributed Unix copyrighted code (which SCO purported to own) to Linux. IBM fought back vigorouslly on a number of fronts, validating the concept of OSS. But they didn't give away IP or assert any against SCO. The shovel they would have buried SCO with was that SCO never owned the Unix copyrights in the first place.
(Score: 2) by jcross on Friday October 03 2014, @09:57PM
You're absolutely right they're not doing it out of altruism, but according to their website they have over 600 devs working on over 100 open source projects, which is a pretty significant contribution in my book. Even though it's done for profit, I'm still grateful.
It's also true that SCO attacked first, but IBM did use some of their patent portfolio in the counterclaims. It was a small part of a bigger strategy, but still.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_v._IBM#IBM_counterclaims_against_SCO [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @08:48PM
Perhaps the best one to open source was the last MS-DOS version -- I believe large sections (or all) was written in assembler and it was really fast on that older hardware.
Separate note, I still have a few .123 files around and they seem to open correctly in Excel 97.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @11:45AM
Is anyone here former Big Blue who had worked on Lotus 1-2-3 as a programmer? Can you tell us what the experience was like?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by schad on Friday October 03 2014, @06:15PM
I was not, but I suspect that the IBM years were pretty grim. Lotus's products were all second-rate by the time IBM bought them, and IBM bought them mainly to bring an office suite to OS/2. OS/2 itself was... perhaps not second-rate, but definitely second-place at best. I expect it would've been a death march.
My fondest memory of Lotus is from one of the Dirk Gently books. It features some guy (not the titular detective) who starts a software company, and the highlight of his life is being mentioned in the same sentence as Lotus: "Such-and-such software company, unlike such successful firms as Lotus..."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by strattitarius on Friday October 03 2014, @01:20PM
not that anyone is seriously using the spreadsheet
Oh, ye of little faith in a manager's ability to cling to the way it's always been done.
This year I had to replace probably 20+ XP computers. One of the fun ones was the manager that still had, AND USED, Lotus 1-2-3. He was fine with the change once we forced it upon him because Lotus was not compatible with Windows 7 (I have no clue if it was or not, but it wasn't getting installed under my watch).
I was told to hold off on another computer upgrade until we switched payroll companies because there were XX years old Lotus 1-2-3 files that were used for some calculations. I guess it was easier to switch companies than the spreadsheets???
And I am willing to be that our company was not the last hold out... they're out there! Pray you don't run across them.
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @01:43PM
Not to mention that someone in the office always seemed to have "borrowed" the floppy disk reader every time you needed to reinstall the application.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @02:33PM
That's pretty disrespectful. You're not going to install the tool your client wants because you personally don't like the software? They're paying you to support those people. He wants Lotus 1-2-3, at least make a token effort to install it for him.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @02:57PM
I know that "Its for their own good" is the thinking of despots, but there really are some cases where its true and necessary, although I'm not sure there's a solid, easy answer for "Who gets to decide what is acceptable?" Forcing somebody to finally stop using a 30 year old program just isn't quite the same as forcing somebody to follow a specific religion or way of life though.
(Score: 2) by strattitarius on Friday October 03 2014, @04:41PM
I would like to ban Adobe Acrobat Pro at work. It's only use is to create forms that probably should be somehow added to our computer systems so we can record the data in the database instead of being emailed around inside a PDF. But, I don't have time to keep up with all the feature requests, so I let that slide. At least until they hire me another IT person.
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 2) by strattitarius on Friday October 03 2014, @04:28PM
Does your IT Dept really support any software that can be downloaded?
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @08:30PM
> Does your IT Dept really support any software that can be downloaded?
They should. There is no packaging (including disks/CDs/DVDs) to needlessly pay extra money for.
The online 'warez' scene is STILL alive and kicking--though 'pushed' deeper underground behind paywalls, scamware, and 'hidden' online sites--IN SPITE of all the efforts of the SPA/BSA to stamp it out.
And if the SPA/BSA somehow is successful, they can't stop organized offline 'sneakernets' and 'copy parties' unless they somehow infiltrate them with their agents/employees....
(Score: 1) by J053 on Friday October 03 2014, @09:43PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Friday October 03 2014, @01:58PM
All my memories of Lotus 1-2-3 are from the MS-DOS version. I still have it in a VM someplace. I used Ami Pro in college to write a lot of papers. I had a lot of love for Lotus products, but it's just a memory now. Lotus never found a way to transfer the slash key and light bar metaphor to Windows, and their Windows versions of 1-2-3 were always awful. Lotus also never seemed to make the transition from big-ticket software packages of the 80s to the Quattro Pro $49 world of the 90s.
Lotus was the victim of the "professional management" I keep taking about. The guy who ran Lotus in the mid-90s essentially stopped product development and tried to shop the company around. He failed to keep up with Microsoft, who ate Lotus' lunch and took its lunch money with Excel and Microsoft Office. MS spent the decade improving Excel and Word (don't believe me? compare Word 2.1 to Word 97!) while Lotus did essentially nothing. Manzi, the CEO, failed twice. He failed to innovate with Lotus, and failed to sell the company - but he ran the company into the ground and made more money failing than I'll make in my entire lifetime when IBM took over the company in a hostile takeover. (Is that a "formula" for success like the Google guys were writing about the other day?)
By the late 90s, the office applications ship had sailed. Lotus rewrote Ami Pro from scratch as Word Pro, and got rid of the one genuinely great product they had going for them. Ami Pro had problems (eg you couldn't flow from the bottom of one page to the top of the next on the screen), but it was a breeze to use, innovative ahead of its time, and Word took a decade to copy all of its features. Word Pro was bloated, slow, and didn't work very well. But by the late 90s, the game was over. IBM does what they do best - buried Lotus SmartSuite in their portfolio of products and milked what little revenue they could from it.
Ami Pro was one of the great gems of the early Windows era. It had easy-to-use style sheets when most people were struggling with "reveal codes" and creating ransome-note documents. Everything about Ami Pro was effortless to me. For whatever reason, Ami Pro always languished behind Word and WordPerfect, but I found it easier to use than any other word processor I've ever encountered.
PS: Hey, remember when Lotus introduced another spreadsheet and competed with itself? It's true. Lotus Improv was the worst software ever created by anyone, up there with Erlang. It was unusable. A few people groked it and liked it, but no one else did. Microsoft's pivot tables in Excel copied the essential novelty in Improv, but made it usable in a real spreadsheet. So Lotus gave Microsoft one of their best Excel features. Sure, MS competed hard and dirty, but their competition made so many missteps.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Friday October 03 2014, @02:22PM
On Tuesday, with no fanfare, IBM closed the last chapter in the life of one of the most iconic early computer programs
It wasn't an early computer program. 123 came out in 1983, but computers and computer programs were 38 years old by then. Replace "computer" with "PC" and it's accurate. PCs (or rather "microcomputers" as they were called then) were only a few years old, and the IBM-XT was released the same year as Lotus.
Lotus was the best spreadsheet on the market for years. At one time at work I had three different spreadsheet programs installed because the feds used Lotus, the state used Corel and most everyone else was on Excel, and I needed to read files from all of them and convert the data to go into NOMAD on the mainframe.
I hadn't had Lotus installed for years. After they put it on my PC I was appalled at what IBM had done to a once great program.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday October 03 2014, @03:05PM
I thought Lotus 1-2-3 had already died. Apparently it had only been on life support. There comes a time when it's much better to just kill it already. It would be interesting to know, if they were still making a profit off Lotus 1-2-3.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by black6host on Friday October 03 2014, @07:50PM
I remember when we used to judge the compatibility of IBM PC clones by two criteria:
1. Did it run Lotus
2. Could it handle a Hercules Graphics card.
If both the above mentioned worked then you were getting a clone you could be pretty sure was compatible with IBM's PC. Of course there was always "Can it run Microsoft's Flight Simulator" but that didn't matter as much in a business environment. That being said I can't remember if running FS answered number 2 above. Probably....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @08:47PM
My best memory of 123, was when transitioning to ms xl 2k, only to discover that ms write help files in something other than english. Learning curve for a non programmer was much smoother with help on lotus.
At the time lotus was the soe, recall entertaining time, proving to the 'power users' with their fancy excel licences, how a little nouse in 123 could achieve same features like conditional format (brief script), filter (of sorts) and even pivots (okay that took a lot more script or some knowledge of source table and judicious use of dget/dsum)