Talk:Lotus 1-2-3

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I recall "As easy as 1-2-3" a clone that was available in the late 80's or early 90's. It was shareware, and on the cheap. Everything else is rather vague, except the use of color. (I've never used the native 1-2-3) Supaplex 07:56, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

You're thinking of ASEASYAS by Trius. A quick google shows that they're still selling it! [1] The Wednesday Island 14:00, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
See As Easy As It out-Quattro-ed Quatto years before Borland decided to undercut Lotus. Scott1329m 14:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Technical features muddle

The Technical Features section is incredibly muddled -- it reads like it the stream of conciousness by whoever wrote "The Twin", a 1-2-3 clone. I nominate it as the first section to get extensive cleanup :-) --Trixter 17:20, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Loyalty to OS/2?

I worked for Lotus during the time of the transition from DOS to Windows. Lotus was not an IBM subsidiary at that time. The idea that V1 of 1-2-3 for Windows was slow to market because Lotus preferred OS/2 is just not true. It is true however that V1 was a "screen scrape" of the then-current DOS verion. V1 of 1-2-3 for Windows was a disaster. Subsequent releases were much better.

This is not true, 1-2-3 for Windows was absolutely not delivered because of the focus on OS/2 with 1-2-3/G (shipped as 1-2-3 for OS/2) developed as the critical product. Manzi believed applications would drive the success of the platform and with 1-2-3 and Wordperfect (partnered with Lotus in delivering on OS/2) OS/2 would win making 1-2-3 for Windows moot. The release of Windows 3.0 (and really 3.1) proved that Windows would be the dominant platform and started a mad scramble at Lotus to deliver on Windows. A developer (I won't name him) sold Frank King (then SVP of Development and former IBMer) on the idea of using 1-2-3 R3 (the DOS product) as the engine for 1-2-3/W and presenting through Windows. The team killed themselves shipping it, after having just gone through heck shipping 1-2-3 3.1 but the product was not good (disaster is accurate). The next versions were much better and ultimately better than Excel (biased opinion) but it was too late. Southshore123 22:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)southshore123

[edit] Suggestion

Need to reword the "writing video" part. It could confuse some people. Perhaps "writing directly to the display hardware bypassing the slower DOS routines"... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Andreas Toth (talk • contribs) 22:30, 21 January 2007 (UTC).

I did this just to get rid of "due to" in the sentence. Scott1329m 14:59, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lotus 123 compatible serial dates?

Are gradually disappearing from the world, but lotus 123 compatible date calculations are still available on some platforms.