Word: visicalc
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...company's main product is VisiCalc, a program for small computers that helps small-and medium-size businesses in planning and budgeting. Fylstra did not develop VisiCalc. That was done by Daniel Bricklin and Robert Frankston, software designers and M.I.T. alumni. But Fylstra was the one who began marketing it, and turned VisiCalc into the most popular small computer program. So far, some 200,000 copies (price: $250) have been sold. Expected sales for VisiCalc and the company's other software programs this year: $35 million...
While big-league computer crooks are a problem for banks and major corporations, another small-time level of thievery is also growing. VisiCalc, a computer program that is widely used by small-and medium-size firms for making budgets and other company planning, is the best-selling program for personal computers. In addition to the sales, however, thousands of people are copying the program, which retails for $250, onto blank diskettes that cost only about $4. For every authentic version of VisiCalc, there are an estimated 1½ illegal, copied ones. Said Daniel Fylstra, chairman of VisiCorp, which developed VisiCalc...
...firm with $500 three years ago, saw sales rise to $4 million last year and expected his gross to triple this year. Now he believes that sales will be "substantially more" than that. The company's first product was the game program Microchess, but its bestseller is VisiCalc, a $200 program used by businessmen to make financial forecasts. Total sales of it to date: 150,000 copies...
...VisiCalc translates simple commands typed on a keyboard into computer language that the machine then uses to solve problems. It enables a businessman, for example, to manipulate labyrinthine equations to calculate financial trends for his company. If he changes one figure, the machine can tell quickly how that affects the other numbers. A firm that gives its workers a 10% pay hike could estimate how that action would alter its costs, sales, profits, or dividends...
...computer program is being put to a wide range of uses. It helps Allerton Cushman Jr., a New York financial analyst, to project insurance-industry profits during the week and tote up his income taxes on the weekend. The Cabot Street Cinema Theatre in Beverly, Mass., bought VisiCalc to figure out which pattern of movie show times draws the best box-office receipts. An accounting firm in Las Vegas plans to use VisiCalc to tell its gambling-house clients how to position slot machines around the floor to ensure the biggest take. VisiCalc is obviously one composition that...