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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: 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.