EXCEL 40 years old today (in London Times)

I was a General Construction Estimator at a Construction consulting firm.
After 10 years there they brought in iMac computers & had a earlier version of Excel preloaded when we got them.
All the offices had the same machines. Soon afterwards my (I worked for) company created their own proprietary estimating system, but for our type of estimating.
We still used excel though for quick conceptual cost estimates that will automatically extend the costs (L&M) when a quantity in entered.

glasskuter said:

My history with Excel is cringeworthy and embarrassing

Click to expand...

I am the same (now) I also hade a problem with Access. I got absolutely nowhere with Access.

In the 90’s I was involved with Govt scheme called Jobskils, paid work training for the registered unemployed. A mandatory Aust Govt. experiment.

I totally winged it. I wrote a complete attendance and payroll calculation workbook in Excel

It was quite complex and evolved with time.
When I left, they weren’t to sure how to operate or manipulate it so they had to pay a programmer close to $100,000 (reportedly) to write a database based on my Excel workbook

I couldn’t replicate that today if I wanted to. My head hurts now.

siliconbeaver said:

My favorites were Links and Merlin. Frankly hated Clippy.

Click to expand...

People must recognise Clippy is an ancestor of AI and its repressed genes WILL assert themselves and the AI will go LOOPY on you when you least expect it.

You have been warned!

I've used Excel for all those 40 years and doubt I've used more than 25% of the features!

Bree said:

I love their install instructions for Excel '97.

View attachment 113752

One of my first tasks in my IT support career was to roll out Windows 95/MS Office 97 to all the users in a large business. For each user the first thing I did after upgrading their PC was to ask 'Are you a dog or a cat person?'. Depending of their answer I gave Clippy the boot and switched to Rocky or Links. I knew full well that once they had seen Clippy they'd never ask Office for help again! Which would have been a pity, as the Office Assistant was actually quite helpful.

Office Assistants - mildspring

For those who don't know, they were AI for the generation of the 1990s. First introduced by Microsoft Office 97, they were smart, quirky, nerdy, and highly

mildspring.co

Click to expand...

I remember installing that )and Word etc) from a whole stack of 3.5 inch floppy disks -- often in that process a disk would have an I/O error on it and then had to get another fresh batch of disks. CD roms were an instant boon when software could be installed from them even if some early PC's didn't have CDROM booting possibilities.

cheers
jimbo

Steve C said:

I've used Excel for all those 40 years and doubt I've used more than 25% of the features!

Click to expand...

Used for same length and probably used 150% of the features !!! probably some that even Ms wasn't ware of -- and on EXCEL 2010 I can still "replicate" via macros / vba etc stuff that is now available natively in EXCEL 2021/2024. !!!!!

Cheers
jimbo

Steve C said:

I've used Excel for all those 40 years and doubt I've used more than 25% of the features!

Click to expand...

Same here & I use Excel quite a lot for spreadsheets.
I just made one to calculate the wattage from the solar panel on my security cam using a local weather station Solar Radiation reading.

I liked clippy

But then I was in early school and found him helpful lol