Boeing Calc was 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 ...

package written by

Boeing Computer Services The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

, an independent subsidiary of aviation manufacturer

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

. It had originally been developed as an in-house accounting tool, but was launched as a commercial product in April 1985 for

IBM 4300 The IBM 4300 series are mid-range systems compatible with System/370 that were sold from 1979 through 1992. They featured modest electrical and cooling requirements, and thus did not require a data center environment. They had a disruptive effect ...

mainframes running IBM MVS and

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

microcomputers running

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

. The original launch price was $399 per copy for the PC version and $8,899 for a combined PC/mainframe bundle. Boeing Calc could read and later write standard

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

files. It supported a maximum spreadsheet size of 16,000 columns by 16,000 rows, and was notable for introducing the concept of 3D spreadsheets. Each spreadsheet could have up to 16,000 pages, with cells prefixed by the page number; the upper-left cell of the third page was referred to as 3A1, for example. This concept was a precursor of the

tabbed sheet In interface design, a tab is a graphical user interface object that allows multiple documents or Panel (computer software), panels to be contained within a single window (computing), window, using tabs as a navigational widget for switching ...

s included in

Quattro Pro Quattro Pro is a spreadsheet program developed by Borland and now sold by Corel, most often as part of Corel's WordPerfect Office suite. Characteristics Historically, Quattro Pro used keyboard commands close to those of Lotus 1-2-3. While it ...

and later spreadsheets. Version 3.0 was launched in August 1987 and introduced multi-user support on PC-based local area networks, with a price of $795 for a LAN licence. Version 4.0 followed in November of that year, with the price for a single-user licence reduced to $395. Unlike competitors such as Lotus 1-2-3 and Quattro it did not support graphics, although Boeing sold a companion program - ''Boeing Graph'' - that could produce 3D charts. Contemporary reviews of version 3.0 praised Boeing Calc's flexibility and ability to work with files of up to 32mb in size, but criticised its steep system requirements, slow speed, and reliance on disk-based

virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a very l ...

. Running on a high-end 6 MHz

IBM PC AT The IBM Personal Computer/AT (model 5170, abbreviated as IBM AT or PC/AT) was released in 1984 as the fourth model in the IBM Personal Computer line, following the IBM PC/XT and its IBM Portable PC variant. It was designed around the Intel 8028 ...

with an

Intel 8087 The Intel 8087, announced in 1980, was the first x87 floating-point coprocessor for the 8086 line of microprocessors. The purpose of the 8087 was to speed up computations for floating-point arithmetic, such as addition, subtraction, multiplicati ...

maths coprocessor, Infoworld's standard spreadsheet took 42.9 seconds to recalculate, versus 7.9 for the same sheet running in Lotus 1-2-3. Towards the end of 1987 Boeing announced its intention to leave the microcomputer software industry. Boeing Computer Services was sold off as an independent entity, ''Garrison Software Corp'', to West German software distributors m+s Elektronik. However the deal fell through and BCS reverted to Boeing's control, where it was eventually merged with Boeing Information Services. Boeing Calc ceased development in 1988, with the final copies being sold off to employees at a discount price of $50.

References

{{Spreadsheets Accounting software