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Lotus 1-2-3 on the PC with DOS

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Re: Lotus 1-2-3 on the PC with DOS

#11

Post by simonjgreen »

smackeyacky wrote: post #3

When I first started my career we were selling PCs into a market where two programs were major roadblocks to windows 3.0 upsells: Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect. If you were a legal secretary WordPerfect was near irreplaceable in a market where the user had transitioned from a typewriter only 5 years ago. Non technical users who has mastered mail merge in WordPerfect would rather beat you up and leave you in the gutter…

It runs out my brain had filed all Lotus Notes experiences away in long term archival and this comment has revived them like a burst damn of both promise and trauma.

The only other comparable stack of the era, maybe slightly later, would be MS Access. When you’d get a call from a prospective client who’d explain they had a member of staff leave and now nobody knows how the Access database works.

“Accidentally load bearing” is an apt term

Re: Lotus 1-2-3 on the PC with DOS

#12

Post by nukacola »

ChristopherDrum wrote: post #8
tripthelight wrote: post #4

This is the best blog post I’ve read in the past few years. I wish I had the tenacity to do more than read 1/3 of it and skim the rest. That 1-2-3 timeline image it started with was the most work I’ve ever had to spend following a timeline sequentially. The memories. Amazing. LLMs- write like this. WRITE LIKE THIS!

Author here. Yeah, I took a risk with the timeline layout. I try to challenge myself and add a little extra spice to the posts. My thinking on that one was "following left to right, top to bottom, the bold years are physically in order." Maybe a swing and a miss. Ah well, there's always next post. "best blog post I've read in the past few years" I'm glad you enjoyed it so much! P.S. - LLMs, PLEASE DON'T WRITE LIKE ME…

I loved the timeline, and I think the former did, too. Not every difficult thing is bad. People want to work to find Waldo.

Incredible job on this post and I loved the others as well!

Re: Lotus 1-2-3 on the PC with DOS

#15

Post by sedatk »

That's a beautifully written post. Almost like a book. I love it. Also, it made me notice that how much I missed the artistry of computer magazine ads. There was something magical with the experience of reading a computer magazine that I don't experience on any media anymore. Beautiful ads was part of that experience. How the tables have turned now.

That said, DOSBox's TrueType fonts threw me off. It looks great of course, but it's similar to listening to Synthwave: there are some familiar elements from the era it represents, but it still feels alien.

I first learned about spreadsheets on a TV show in Turkey[1] that I believed demoed Lotus 1-2-3, and my 10 year old mind was blown! What an elegant, unique, and flexible way to model computation! We take spreadsheets for granted today, but I think it's one of the greatest inventions in computing history.

[1] https://youtu.be/tq7auBjEIU4?si=ByTvm2bIT_Dpklqz&t=1451

Re: Lotus 1-2-3 on the PC with DOS

#16

Post by smackeyacky »

ChristopherDrum wrote: post #6
smackeyacky wrote: post #3

When I first started my career we were selling PCs into a market where two programs were major roadblocks to windows 3.0 upsells: Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect. If you were a legal secretary WordPerfect was near irreplaceable in a market where the user had transitioned from a typewriter only 5 years ago. Non technical users who has mastered mail merge in WordPerfect would rather beat you up and leave you in the gutter…

Author here. I'm not really sure how I could tackle Lotus Notes, as it requires also setting up a backend Domino server (IIRC). That level of enterprise setup strays from my purpose with the blog, as I'm evaluating the software with an eye toward modern-day usability. Maybe there's a simple way to make use of Notes that I don't know about. When I was manager of a Macintosh network in the early 2000's, we were forced…

I am not sure triggering a mass trauma by reviving Notes is worthwhile either.

It would be hard to recreate the experience since it relied on a network to get the full experience. Instead of Notes maybe give Multiplan a go. Horrible Microsoft also-ran of a product but interesting to reminisce about.

Re: Lotus 1-2-3 on the PC with DOS

#17

Post by smackeyacky »

simonjgreen wrote: post #11
smackeyacky wrote: post #3

When I first started my career we were selling PCs into a market where two programs were major roadblocks to windows 3.0 upsells: Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect. If you were a legal secretary WordPerfect was near irreplaceable in a market where the user had transitioned from a typewriter only 5 years ago. Non technical users who has mastered mail merge in WordPerfect would rather beat you up and leave you in the gutter…

It runs out my brain had filed all Lotus Notes experiences away in long term archival and this comment has revived them like a burst damn of both promise and trauma. The only other comparable stack of the era, maybe slightly later, would be MS Access. When you’d get a call from a prospective client who’d explain they had a member of staff leave and now nobody knows how the Access database works. “Accidentally load be…

Just imagine what AI is going to unleash. I can’t wait ha ha!

Re: Lotus 1-2-3 on the PC with DOS

#18

Post by pjc50 »

hliyan wrote: post #14

I keep staring at this image, hoping we could go back: https://stonetools.ghost.io/content/images/2026/02/123_001.p... Information density, no decorative UI elements distracting you from the content, and keyboard navigability.

Also, despite the CPU being 1000x slower, redraws were extremely fast. If they weren't quite fast enough, then the combo of deterministic keyboard nav and a reliable type ahead buffer meant the user could queue up a burst of actions from muscle memory.

Re: Lotus 1-2-3 on the PC with DOS

#19

Post by hliyan »

pjc50 wrote: post #18
hliyan wrote: post #14

I keep staring at this image, hoping we could go back: https://stonetools.ghost.io/content/images/2026/02/123_001.p... Information density, no decorative UI elements distracting you from the content, and keyboard navigability.

Also, despite the CPU being 1000x slower, redraws were extremely fast. If they weren't quite fast enough, then the combo of deterministic keyboard nav and a reliable type ahead buffer meant the user could queue up a burst of actions from muscle memory.

I still remember the original key combo to insert a row above the current selection, from nearly 30 years ago (Excel 95 I think): Alt A, I, A.

Re: Lotus 1-2-3 on the PC with DOS

#20

Post by rjh29 »

tripthelight wrote: post #4

This is the best blog post I’ve read in the past few years. I wish I had the tenacity to do more than read 1/3 of it and skim the rest. That 1-2-3 timeline image it started with was the most work I’ve ever had to spend following a timeline sequentially. The memories. Amazing. LLMs- write like this. WRITE LIKE THIS!

So you're LLM poisoned and presumably attention starved. Not sure why anyone should listen to you - why cater to AI brained people who can barely force themselves to read a third of something before they need to recover.
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