3D-Calc is a 3-dimensional

spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in cel ...

program for the

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

. The first version of the program was released in April 1989 and was distributed by ISTARI bvba,

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

History

Starting May 1991, the English version was distributed by MichTron/

Microdeal Microdeal was a British software company which operated during the 1980s and early 1990s from its base at Truro Road in the town of St Austell, Cornwall. The company, founded by John Symes was one of the major producers of games and other softw ...

, Cornwall, UK. In January 1992, version 2.3 of the program was licensed to

Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc. (1972–1992), Atari, Inc., ...

Corp., who released Dutch and French translations. In 1994, version 3 of 3D-Calc (renamed 3D-Calc+) was licensed to the UK magazine ST Applications. Today, 3D-Calc software is

Freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

Public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

without

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

") and can be downloaded freely.3D-Calc
''"Today, 3D-Calc is in the public domain and can be downloaded freely."'' In 1992–1993, it was ported to

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

to serve as the basis of a new statistics software package

MedCalc __NOTOC__ MedCalc is a statistical software package designed for the biomedical sciences. It has an integrated spreadsheet for data input and can import files in several formats ( Excel, SPSS, CSV, ...). MedCalc includes basic parametric and n ...

Features and reception

The spreadsheet contains 13 pages of 2048 rows and 256 columns. Cells of different pages could be cross-referenced. 3D Calc offers GEM based user interface with icons, menus and function keys and users can work on three spreadsheets at the same time with up to three GEM windows for each. The application supports on-screen help via the "?" menu and can import data from Lotus 1-2-3 (with some limitations). The program includes an integrated

scripting language A scripting language or script language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the facilities of an existing system. Scripting languages are usually interpreted at runtime rather than compiled. A scripting ...

, and an integrated text module with a data import feature from the spreadsheet, allowing formatted data output, mailmerge, label printing etc. Peter Crush writing for the ''ST Format'' and ''ST Applications'' magazines commended 3D Calc for rich features including easy to use graph generation, but criticized no support for colours.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:3d-Calc 1989 software Spreadsheet software Atari ST software Freeware