Looking Back at Early Versions of Excel

While clearing some of the boxes in the basement, I found a stack of old MacUser and MacWorld magazines. A couple of issues had articles on early versions of Excel (it started on the Mac) , so that was a good excuse to stop working, and flip through the magazines. I wasn’t resting, I was researching! Here are some pro tips from Excel 1.0, and a review of the exciting new features in Excel 2.2.

Getting a Macintosh

We got our Macintosh computer in April 1984, when they were first sold in Canada. At first, there wasn’t much software available. We had MacPaint and MacWrite, and did all kinds of wonderful things with those simple programs, on that little black and white monitor.

And yes, that original 128K Mac is still in the basement too. We did get it upgraded to 512K, and we had an external floppy drive, but no hard drive.

 

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And a very boxy-looking mouse. Do you remember cleaning the roller balls from those things?

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Excel Tips Version 1.0

So far, the earliest Mac magazines that I’ve found were from 1987. Maybe I couldn’t afford to buy any before that, after spending so much on the Mac computer and dot-matrix printer. They were expensive, compared to PCs!

In the June 1987 issue of MacUser, there is a “Secrets of Excel” article, by Louis Benjamin. It’s described as a “collection of pro techniques and undocumented features. So, I took a look at the article, to see how relevant the tips are in Excel 2016. I assume the author was using Excel 1.0, based on the Excel version history for the Apple Macintosh.

Custom Number Formatting

The first tip was about custom number formatting. Instead of choosing from a list of built-in formats, create custom number formats. That tip still useful, but the formatting dialog box looks different now.

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To see how it’s done in newer versions of Excel, take a look at Microsoft’s article on custom number formats. You can even add colours and text to the numbers.

Make Overlay Charts

The Secrets of Excel article also has some good tips on building charts, and studying how the SERIES function works. Apparently, what we now call Combination Charts were originally called Overlay Charts.

P.S. Get Jon Peltier’s Excel Charting Utility, if you work with charts in Excel. It helps you build complex charts quickly, and has other charting tools to help you save time.

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More Pro Tips

The article had several more Excel tips that are just as useful in Excel 2016 as they were in Excel 1.0 . For example, create named ranges – you can refer to them in formulas and macros, and quickly to to those ranges with Go To Special.

It wasn’t all business though – did you know that there was an Easter Egg hidden in this old version of Excel?

To activate the Easter Egg, you had to go to cell IV16384, and press Shift+Command+J. This Find windows appeared, and you could drag inside the text box, to scroll across a list of the Excel developer names. Ah, the good old days!

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Excel Version 2.2 Review

In the September 1989 issue of MacUser, there was a short review of Microsoft Excel 2.2. It got the highest possible rating – 5 mice!

Excel was certainly expensive ($395 US), but look at the size of the files – 728K for the application!

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Exciting New Features

There were several exciting new features in Excel 2.2 – 8 colours! Multiple fonts on a sheet! No more 1 MB limit! Woohoo!

And look at those beautiful charts, with all those text boxes and shadow effects. I’m glad nobody does stuff like that anymore. Do they?

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There was special help for Lotus 123 converts, and Excel still has Lotus compatibility features, 30 years later.

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Old or New?

So, do you miss the old days of a smaller, simpler Excel application, or are you happy with the current version, and all its features?

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