Scharf, never smug, still tinkered with the Apple and its software. An observant computer dealer noticed he would keep asking for larger RAM boards to allow him to do bigger, fancier spreadsheets.
And so it was that the dealer nominated Scharf a tester for Lotus 1-2-3 in late summer 1982. 1-2-3 was the new integrated software from Lotus Development Corporation, a Massachusetts firm started by a former rock disk jockey rich with $500,000 in royalties from programs sold to the makers of VisiCalc.
1-2-3 combined a spreadsheet, graphics, and data base. You could, for instance, pump figures from the spreadsheet program directly into the data base with a few simple keystrokes. You didn’t have to go through unwieldy[unwieldy] computer rigamarole to transfer facts from one kind of electronic file to another. More important, however, Lotus, at least for Scharf’s use, was a more powerful numbers cruncher than the VisiCalc he ran on his Apple. Lotus was for the 16-bit IBM PC. Sixteen-bit machines were speed demons for numbers crunchers, especially with powerful programs like 1-2-3. An Apple-VisiCalc duo handled worksheets with 254 rows and about 65 columns. But an IBM and 1-2-3 duo could take on 2,048 rows and 256 columns.
Scharf’s first test version of 1-2-3 cracked simultaneous equations in four minutes, one-tenth the time that the Apple-VisiCalc combination took. Income and cash-flow statements came out calculated to the nearest penny.
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Alan Scharf’s Tips on Choosing the Right Spreadsheet
Not every spreadsheet user has needs as complex as those of Alan Scharf, a whiz with Lotus 1-2-3 and Symphony, but here are traits he says you might look for:
1. A large number of rows and columns. A spreadsheet of 254 rows and 65 columns doesn’t mean you can work with 254 rows and 65 columns containing a total of 16,510 cells. The actual number of cells—the number of columns multiplied by rows—will be only about a thousand. A 640K-RAM machine and an elaborate spreadsheet would be much more appropriate for budget planners in a large corporation with many products and divisions.
2. Speed. “Even with a simple spreadsheet,” says Scharf, “someone might get annoyed if it seemed to drag.” In late 1984 his complex calculations on an IBM PC were taking as much as four and one-half minutes. And he said: “There are times when I just need the answers faster.” The powerful IBM AT could run the present version of Lotus 1-2-3 twice as fast. However, he was still looking forward to the day when a version of Lotus 1-2-3 for the AT would require even less time and address the full 3 megabytes of memory (aided by a new operating system). Consult micro magazines for the latest speed comparisons.
3. General simplicity and ease of use. In tricky places, does the program offer “help” messages in plain English to guide you through various procedures if you want? Ease of use will increase as computer memories grow larger and leave more room for “help” features.