SuperCalc is a

CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initi ...

-80

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 ...

application published by Sorcim in 1980.

History

VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program but its release for the CP/M operating system ran only on the HP-125, Sharp MZ80, and the Sony SMC-70. SuperCalc was created to fill that void and market opportunity. Alongside

WordStar WordStar is a word processor application for microcomputers. It was published by MicroPro International and originally written for the CP/M-80 operating system, and later written also for MS-DOS and other 16-bit PC OSes. Rob Barnaby was the so ...

, it was one of the CP/M applications bundled with the

Osborne 1 The Osborne 1 is the first commercially successful portable computer, released on April 3, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighs , cost US$1,795, and runs the CP/M 2.2 operating system. It is powered from a wall socket, as it has no ...

portable computer A portable computer is a computer designed to be easily moved from one place to another and included a display and keyboard together, with a single plug, much like later desktop computers called '' all-in-ones'' (AIO), that integrate the s ...

. It quickly became popular and 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 o ...

in 1982. An improvement over VisiCalc (though using much the same command structure using the slash key), SuperCalc was one of the first spreadsheet programs capable of iteratively solving

circular reference A circular reference is a series of references where the last object references the first, resulting in a closed loop. In language A circular reference is not to be confused with the logical fallacy of a circular argument. Although a circula ...

s (cells that depend on each other's results). It would be over 10 years after the introduction of SuperCalc before this feature was implemented in

Microsoft Excel Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows, Windows, macOS, Android (operating system), Android and iOS. It features calculation or computation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro (comp ...

, although in

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 ...

, manual programming of iterative logic could also be used to solve this issue. According to the SuperCalc product manager, iterative calculations were added when Sorcim changed from

binary-coded decimal In computing and electronic systems, binary-coded decimal (BCD) is a class of binary encodings of decimal numbers where each digit is represented by a fixed number of bits, usually four or eight. Sometimes, special bit patterns are used ...

to binary math. Since the precision of the two math packages was different, some IF statements resolved differently, and iterative calculations helped solve this problem. Versions of SuperCalc were later released for the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

, for

PCs A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or techn ...

running MS-DOS, and, after Sorcim was bought by

CA Technologies CA Technologies, formerly known as CA, Inc. and Computer Associates International, Inc., is an American multinational corporation headquartered in New York City. It is primarily known for its business-to-business (B2B) software with a product po ...

(CA) in 1985, for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

(under the name CA-SuperCalc). SuperCalc was CA Technologies' first personal computer product. The MS-DOS versions were more popular with many users than the market-leading Lotus 1-2-3, because it was distributed without copy protection, as well as being priced lower. By the release of version 3 in March 1987, a million users were claimed. New versions were published into the early 1990s, after which Microsoft Excel dominated the spreadsheet market. In 1993, the Ministry of Railway of Russia signed an agreement with CA Technologies after a Russian employee illegally used SuperCalc for government purposes.

Versions

*1980: SuperCalc *SuperCalc 2, which featured a novelty: Split screen with formulas on one side, and graphs on the other *1986: SuperCalc 4, evaluated #2 on the spreadsheets market after Excel, with introduction of automatic construction of macros * 1989: SuperCalc 5

References

External links

SuperCalc 1.00
running on an IBM PC Model 5150 at the

System Source Computer Museum The System Source Computer Museum, located in Hunt Valley, Maryland, exhibits notable computing devices from ancient times until the present. Over 5,000 objects are on display, and many of the computation devices are operational. STEM activiti ...

. Spreadsheet software Microcomputer software CP/M software DOS software Presentation software for Windows 1980 software {{Business-software-stub