ViewSheet is a

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 produced in the 1980s by

Acornsoft Acornsoft was the software arm of Acorn Computers, and a major publisher of software for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. As well as games, it also produced a large number of educational titles, extra computer languages and business and util ...

for use with the

BBC Micro The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphas ...

and

Acorn Electron The Acorn Electron (nicknamed the Elk inside Acorn and beyond) was a lower-cost alternative to the BBC Micro educational/ home computer, also developed by Acorn Computers Ltd, to provide many of the features of that more expensive machine at a ...

microcomputers. It was distributed as a pre-installed

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * R ...

with some computer models, such as the

Master Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans *Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...

. ViewSheet was written by

Mark Colton Mark Colton (17 March 1961 – 5 August 1995) was a British racing driver and software author. He was killed in practice for Craigantlet Hillclimb speed event in Northern Ireland after his Pilbeam's front wing failed and he hit a telegraph pole. ...

Description

ViewSheet supports spreadsheets of up to 255 by 255 cells in size. Each cell can contain a number, formula or text label. Cells are referred to as ''slots'' in the official Acornsoft documentation. The program is supplied with a keyboard card listing the various commands, which on the BBC Micro is placed under the clear plastic strip above the function keys. The spreadsheet is entered by typing *SHEET. All BBC Micro screen modes are supported, and the background and foreground colours can be changed by use of Ctrl-S,n,n,0,0,0 key sequences. The program supports user-defined windows that can display cells from various different parts of the spreadsheet within the same screen. This is useful in lieu of a

WIMP Wimp, WIMP, or Wimps may refer to: Science and technology * Weakly interacting massive particle, a hypothetical particle of dark matter * WIMP (computing), the "window, icon, menu, pointer" paradigm * WIMP (software bundle), the web stack of Wind ...

environment, as it saves the user the inconvenience of moving back and forth around the spreadsheet to view cells which are far apart from each other. ViewSheet supports saving of spreadsheets to both disk and tape and printing to both serial and parallel printers. These operations are performed in ''command mode'', which also allows changing various options such as VDU settings and screen resolution. The program also integrates with Acornsoft's ''View'' word processor, allowing mixing of spreadsheet data and word processor text within the same printout. There's also a built-in facility for generating character-based bar charts. Cells can be left or right justified and formatted according to a user specified layout. Numeric values are stored internally as five-byte floating point numbers. The ViewSheet file format is documented on page 128 of the supplied user guide, which also contains an example

BBC BASIC BBC BASIC is a version of the BASIC programming language released in 1981 as the native programming language for the BBC Micro home/personal computer, providing a standardized language for a UK computer literacy project of the BBC. It was wri ...

program to print out values from a saved spreadsheet. ''ViewSheet'' takes advantage of a second 6502 processor, which triples the amount of memory available for spreadsheets, assuming the default screen mode is used (mode 3).

Critical reception

ViewSheet was reviewed by Gordon Taylor in the January 1985 edition of ''A&B computing'' and a book ''ViewSheet and Viewstore: A Dabhand Guide by Graham Bell'' was published by ''Dabs Press'' in 1989. David Brown, in his review for ''The Micro User'' states that ViewSheet "succeeds in providing all the basic spreadsheet functions in a well presented package". Although, he also cites several shortcomings of the program, writing "In conclusion, Viewsheet's major failing is to provide adequate facilities for textual labelling." and finishes by noting "Acornsoft is capable of producing better programs".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Viewsheet Spreadsheet software Acorn Computers