S2 Spreadsheet

Last updated
S2 Spreadsheet
Original author(s) Oleg Vishnepolsky
Developer(s) IBM
Initial release 1984;34 years ago (1984)
Type spreadsheet

S2 Spreadsheet was a Lotus 1-2-3 compatible spreadsheet developed by IBM in 1984. It had all the features of Lotus 1-2-3, plus it had an ability to connect to IBM mainframes via TCP/IP and pull data from IBM databases such as IBM DB2 and IBM SQL/DS. [1] It also had features that allowed for easy visual connection between formulas and their dependencies - those features were later adopted by Lotus 1-2-3 and Microsoft Excel. S2 was developed almost concurrently with Lotus development of 1-2-3, and matched 1-2-3 feature for feature. The S2 program was used throughout IBM in 1980s and 1990s. In 1986 it caused a legal controversy within IBM because of then current look-and-feel lawsuits between Lotus and other companies, and most importantly because IBM was negotiating a high-profile deal with Lotus to market Lotus 1-2-3.

Lotus 1-2-3 software

Lotus 1-2-3 is a discontinued spreadsheet program from Lotus Software. It was the IBM PC's first killer application, was hugely popular in the 1980s and contributed significantly to the success of the IBM PC.

IBM American multinational technology and consulting corporation

International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. The company began in 1911, founded in Endicott, New York, as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) and was renamed "International Business Machines" in 1924.

SQL/DS, released in 1981, was IBM's first commercial relational-database management system. It implemented the SQL database-query language.

According to a PC WEEK article of 1986 [2] and a subsequent one in 2009, [3] the sole author of this program was a developer in Thomas Watson Research Center, Oleg Vishnepolsky. Vishnepolsky developed this program unaware of the brewing deal between IBM and Lotus, and distributed it within IBM community to close to 50,000 users by the time of the controversy. A copy of his program ended up with a reporter of PC Week, who published an article speculating that IBM and Lotus' deal may be coming apart. That article caused a consternation within IBM executive quarters and attorneys.

IBM attorneys and executives in the end decided that the program does not violate the Lotus copyright. Given S2's wide adoption within IBM they decided not to withdraw it from use, and let Vishnepolsky to continue its development. Vishnepolsky however lost interest in further development of S2, moved to another project and later authored TCP/IP for OS/2 and IBM POS terminals. S2 spreadsheet got ported to OS/2 and AIX by other developers and remained in use through the 90s. Vishnepolsky reportedly said that instead of getting fired from IBM he received an outstanding technical achievement award from IBM CEO John Fellows Akers in 1992.

OS/2 operating system from IBM

OS/2 is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 relative to Microsoft's new Windows 3.1 operating environment, the two companies severed the relationship in 1992 and OS/2 development fell to IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2", because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 (PS/2)" line of second-generation personal computers. The first version of OS/2 was released in December 1987 and newer versions were released until December 2001.

John Fellows Akers was a U.S. businessman. At International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), he was president between 1983 and 1989, the CEO from 1985 until 1993, and chairman between 1986 and 1993.

See also

Related Research Articles

IBM AIX Unix operating system from IBM

AIX is a series of proprietary Unix operating systems developed and sold by IBM for several of its computer platforms. Originally released for the IBM RT PC RISC workstation, AIX now supports or has supported a wide variety of hardware platforms, including the IBM RS/6000 series and later POWER and PowerPC-based systems, IBM System i, System/370 mainframes, PS/2 personal computers, and the Apple Network Server.

A spreadsheet is an interactive computer application for organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in cells of a table. Each cell may contain either numeric or text data, or the results of formulas that automatically calculate and display a value based on the contents of other cells. A spreadsheet may also refer to one such electronic document.

VisiCalc spreadsheet software

VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet computer program for personal computers, originally released for the Apple II by VisiCorp. It is often considered the application that turned the microcomputer from a hobby for computer enthusiasts into a serious business tool, prompting IBM to introduce the IBM PC two years later. VisiCalc is considered the Apple II's killer app. It sold over 700,000 copies in six years, and as many as 1 million copies over its history.

IBM PC compatible computers are computers similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones. They duplicate almost exactly all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by IBM's choice of commodity hardware components and various manufacturers' ability to reverse engineer the BIOS firmware using a "clean room design" technique. Columbia Data Products built the first clone of the IBM personal computer by a clean room implementation of its BIOS.

Lotus Improv spreadsheet program

Lotus Improv is a discontinued spreadsheet program from Lotus Development released in 1991 for the NeXTSTEP platform and then for Windows 3.1 in 1993. Development was put on hiatus in 1994 after slow sales on the Windows platform, and officially ended in April 1996 after Lotus was purchased by IBM.

Lotus Software was an American software company based in Massachusetts; it was "offloaded" to India's HCL Corporation in 2018.

Mac OS 9 operating system

Mac OS 9 is the ninth major release of Apple's classic Mac OS operating system. Introduced on October 23, 1999, it was promoted by Apple as "The Best Internet Operating System Ever", highlighting Sherlock 2's Internet search capabilities, integration with Apple's free online services known as iTools and improved Open Transport networking. While Mac OS 9 lacks protected memory and full pre-emptive multitasking, lasting improvements include the introduction of an automated Software Update engine and support for multiple users.

In computing, the Windows Sockets API (WSA), later shortened to Winsock, is a technical specification that defines how Windows network software should access network services, especially TCP/IP. It defines a standard interface between a Windows TCP/IP client application and the underlying TCP/IP protocol stack. The nomenclature is based on the Berkeley sockets API model used in BSD for communications between programs.

Expanded memory

In DOS memory management, expanded memory is a system of bank switching that provided additional memory to DOS programs beyond the limit of conventional memory.

IBM TopView

TopView is a text-mode PC DOS multitasking, object-oriented windowing environment written by IBM, announced in August 1984 and shipped in March 1985. TopView provided an operating environment that allowed users to run more than one application at the same time on a PC. IBM demonstrated an early version of the product to key customers before making it generally available, around the time they shipped their new PC AT computer.

Interlink Computer Sciences, of Fremont, California, was a developer of hardware and software that allowed IBM mainframe computers running the MVS operating system to be connected to non-IBM networks.

<i>eWeek</i>

eWeek is a technology and business magazine, owned by QuinStreet. The magazine was acquired in 2012 by QuinStreet from the company Ziff Davis, owner of the publication for all of its life up to that point, along with Baseline.com, ChannelInsider.com, CIOInsight.com, and WebBuyersGuide.com.

Lotus Magellan

Lotus Magellan is an MS-DOS desktop search package, conceived and developed by Bill Gross and released in 1989 by Lotus Development Corporation, most famous for Lotus 1-2-3. Lotus sold 500,000 copies of Magellan.

IBM Lotus Freelance Graphics

Lotus Freelance Graphics is an information graphics and presentation program developed by Lotus Software following its acquisition of Graphic Communications Inc in 1986. It was first released for DOS and OS/2 operating systems, then later released as part of the Lotus SmartSuite for Microsoft Windows.

Barry Appelman is recognized as being the father of the "buddy list" and AOL instant messenger. Companies had been using crude forms of Instant messaging within their own networks for over forty years, but the idea of presence, i.e. who is logged on at any given time, was non existent. It was not until Appelman, and his colleagues at the Thomas Watson Research Center, first began to write programs on the mainframe system letting each other know when they were actually online, that modern day Instant Messaging was born.

Boeing Calc was a spreadsheet package written by Boeing Computer Services, an independent subsidiary of aviation manufacturer Boeing. It had originally been developed as an in-house accounting tool, but was launched as a commercial product in April 1985 for IBM 4300 mainframes running IBM MVS and IBM PC microcomputers running MS-DOS. The original launch price was $399 per copy for the PC version and $8,899 for a combined PC/mainframe bundle.

References

  1. ↑ S2 help screen shot by David Strom of PC Week
  2. ↑ "IBM has its own Lotus 1-2-3 competitor", David Strom, PC Week, 1986
  3. ↑ 25 years of PC Week
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.