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From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker)
Subject: Re: Letter From Ted Nelson
Message-ID: <hbaker-0706951720170001@192.0.2.1>
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Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 01:20:17 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.lisp:18035 comp.lang.icon:3152

In article <3r4kpr$q9q@crl4.crl.com>, dbennett@crl.com (Andrea Chen) wrote:

> A historical example is the spreadsheet
> (a product which helped launch the PC revolution).  Two features
> which distinguished it were its matrix frontend and "automatic
> recalculation" in the backend.  This second feature is natural to
> Lisp dialects which could have served as an engine.  They would
> also have provided call by name (not just cell number) and 
> "multidimensional" structures.  It took spreadsheet engines over
> ten years to evolve these features on their own.  

The first spreadsheet _was_ prototyped in Multics Lisp by Bob Frankston,
which became 'VisiCalc', I believe.

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