Ad from 1992 from Microsoft for a new spreadsheet editor software for Windows and Macintosh
Ad from 1992 from Microsoft for a new spreadsheet editor software for Windows and Macintosh
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Bullshit, at the click of a button!
3:00 minute AD! Holy Shit!
We take stuff like Excel for granted, myself included, but this puts it in perspective how revolutionary something like Excel and Word were.
That changed for me when circa 2008 I was running my own computer repair business one of my clients, who ran a paving company, asked me whether I could create a program for him that would help him do the calculations related to road paving projects for which he had to estimate cost and materials, which he was currently doing longhand.
He was an engineer and had this formula for estimating materials used, costs, area, etc: it was pretty complex. Suffice to say I learned a lot about road paving and grading.
I had no experience with Excel. However, I decided that Excel would work for what he needed.
I ended up designing a program within Excel, replete with all these quite complex calculations (that were hidden).
From then on all he had to do was to open this particular spreadsheet (read only, and protected of course) and punch the measurements data into the fields I had created, and it would spit out all kinds of data related to the amount of materials (asphalt, base, rock, etc) he would need for x area, and the various costs, both to him, and to the customer.
It was like a beautiful little computer program within a spreadsheet. I really enjoyed designing it, making it look good and function appropriately.
After I mastered it he asked me to create several more versions for him to do different calculations.
He loved my company after that.
I was pretty proud, too. Had no idea Excel could rock like that.
Wow, Lotus 1-2-3 lasted until 2014!
Kids, back in my day we went to a physical store to buy software. It came in a box, on disks. You put the disks into the computer, 1.44 megabytes max per disk, and slowly copied the files to your hard drive. Once it was installed you entered a code that was also in the box to activate it, and it stayed activated as long as you had the computer. There were no subscriptions because there was no internet.
I told the guy in this commercial that his business card is a really nice color. He said, “That’s bone. And the lettering is something called ‘Silian Rail.'”
Then he invited me to a Huey Lewis concert this weekend. Cool, right?
I always like to see these 90s ads. Takes me back to happiness.
Those cheesy little jazz licks are so Twin Peaks
I kept looking at the Hugh Laurie doppelganger in the back.
Crazy that the interface is almost the same 31 years later. Especially the drag function is something I wouldn’t expect to see in 1992.
I used to be an expert at Lotus123.
You know you are old when you remember using spreadsheets before excel….
And on that long-ass elevator ride, nobody else got into the elevator? BS!!
Elders of reddit who were working at offices at that time, what was it like? Did everything just move at a much slower pace than now? Was it less stressful?
Did anyone else learn things in this video you didn’t know you could currently do on Excel?
It’s weird to me that the table format was such a big deal. Maybe to executives who need color, but that first was pretty bad. The only formatting I’ll do is alternating row colors for bigger sets.
Apparently getting run over by a bus was a bigger problem in 1992 than I remember.
As someone that’s been using Excel since 1986, I question the point that it was “new” in 1992.
That was a fancy ass laptop for 1992!!
This os a long ad.
Excel is the most powerful tool that was created. You can run a small business in a Excel spreadsheet and to think that this tool is 30+ years old
I owe my technical career to Excel. I learned how to automate in VBA, then interface with other systems, and then on to bigger things.
I started out looking for ways to not repeat data entry and ended up with a small software engineering company.
Ad director:
“And for his colleague, I’m picturing like a Woody Allen neurotic New Yorker character to keep coming up with excuses”
As a bike messenger who rides in elevators with office workers quite a lot I can tell you that this never happens
I like how they conveyed the sense of speed by putting them in an elevator. It would have otherwise been super boring to watch two corporate dudes doing this but it creates a sense of urgency.
Blatantly stolen…
An optimist will say the glass is 1/2 full.
A pessimist will say the glass is 1/2 empty.
Excel will say the glass is January 2nd.
I just want excel to stop re-formatting my cells. 😫😭