What is the purpose for a Spreadsheet?
 

This is a something i need to know for an IT Assignment and this is that only
thing i don't know.

Trainboy85 wrote:
This is a something i need to know for an IT Assignment and this is that only
thing i don't know.

Spreadsheets started out life as electronic versions of analysis paper.
(and if you don't know what THAT is go to your local stationers and ask
to see some!). Their primary role was and is, the manipulation of
financial data into user and management-friendly formats. The fact that
some people now use them for fitness schedules(!) amongst other weird
and wacky things, does not detract from the fact that they are first and
foremost, financial tools.

--
Interim Systems and Management Accounting
Gordon Burgess-Parker
Director
www.gbpcomputing.co.uk

Gordon,

If by "...first and foremost, financial tools...", you meant that they
logically grew out of a desire to simplify financial reporting, I would
agree. However, they are certainly used for a vast array of other
applications that have little to do with financial information--engineering
analysis and design, quality control management, scientific data gathering
and analysis, and the presentation of ANY data set in meaningful textual and
graphical formats.

You may find me "weird and wacky"--but an exponential curve fit on turkey
temperature data at Thanksgiving predicts the finish line WAY better than
meaningless "rules of thumb". Haven't lost one yet!

Sprinks


"Gordon" wrote:

Trainboy85 wrote:
This is a something i need to know for an IT Assignment and this is that only
thing i don't know.

Spreadsheets started out life as electronic versions of analysis paper.
(and if you don't know what THAT is go to your local stationers and ask
to see some!). Their primary role was and is, the manipulation of
financial data into user and management-friendly formats. The fact that
some people now use them for fitness schedules(!) amongst other weird
and wacky things, does not detract from the fact that they are first and
foremost, financial tools.

--
Interim Systems and Management Accounting
Gordon Burgess-Parker
Director
www.gbpcomputing.co.uk

Googling "History of spreadsheets" gives
http://dssresources.com/history/sshistory.html
as its first hit. There may be useful information in other hits as well.

Spreadsheets give a convenient interface for calculating and doing
what-if scenarios. As noted in the link and by other responders, it was
first contemplated in a financial setting, but the implications for all
kinds of other calculations were grasped very rapidly. It is probably
not an overstatement to say that spreadsheet applications almost single
handedly carried PCs from an electronic hobbyist's toy into a business
and subsequently household appliance.

Jerry

Trainboy85 wrote:

This is a something i need to know for an IT Assignment and this is that only
thing i don't know.

Trainboy85 wrote:
This is a something i need to know for an IT Assignment and this is
that only
thing i don't know.

When I graduated from college in 1982, my first job was with a software
company that made many products, but the one I worked with was a
"financial modeling, statistical analysis, graphics, what-if analysis"
tool. This was before the PC existed per se. The type of packages were
classified as "Decision Support Systems". Packages such as FOCUS,
SystemW, IFPS, EMPIRE, and SAS were the tools available. These were
"english-like" procedural programming tools that would be compiled into
Fortran, etc for execution. These tools ran on the "mainframe" and
"midrange" hardware platforms being the predominate hardware platforms
in the "old days"...Then the PC...Bill Gates, Lotus,...came on
after...The DSS product I supported called EMPIRE had a cobol like
structure, but had a place to define columns, rows, and
constants...sounds like "spreadsheets"...they were the predecessors to
it I guess...just to complete your history lesson...