Aspreadsheetis an interactive computer application for organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form.Spreadsheets are developed as computerized simulations of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in cells of a table. Each cell may contain either numeric or text data, or the results of formulas that automatically calculate anddisplay a value based on the contents of other cells. A spreadsheet may also refer to one such electronic document.

Spreadsheet users can adjust any stored value and observe the effects on calculated values. This makes the spreadsheet useful for "what-if" analysis since many casescan be rapidly investigated without manual recalculation. Modern spreadsheet software can have multiple interacting sheets, and can display data either as text and numerals, or in graphical form.

Besides performing basic arithmetic and mathematical functions, modern spreadsheets provide built-in functions for common financial and statistical operations. Suchcalculations as net present value or standard deviation can be applied to tabular data with a pre-programmed function in a formula. Spreadsheet programs also provide conditional expressions, functions to convert between text and numbers, and functions thatoperate on strings of text.

Spreadsheets have replaced paper-based systems throughout the business world. Although they were first developed for accounting or bookkeeping tasks, they now are usedextensively in any context where tabular lists are built, sorted, and shared.

LANPAR, available in1969, was the first electronic spreadsheet on mainframe and time sharing computers. LANPAR was an acronym: LANguage for Programming Arrays at Random.VisiCalc was the first electronic spreadsheet on a microcomputer, and it helped turn the Apple II computer into a popular and widely used system. Lotus 1-2-3 was the leading spreadsheet when DOS was the dominant operating system. Excel now has the largestmarket share on the Windows and Macintosh platforms. A spreadsheet program is a standard feature of an office productivity suite; since the advent of web apps, office suites now also exist in web app form. Web based spreadsheetsare a relatively new category.

Paper spreadsheets

The word "spreadsheet" came from "spread" in its sense of a newspaper or magazine item (text or graphics) that covers two facing pages, extending across the centerfold and treating the two pages as one large one. The compound word "spread-sheet" came to mean the format used to present book-keeping ledgerswith columns for categories of expenditures across the top, invoices listed down the left margin, and the amountof each payment in the cell where its row and column intersectwhich were, traditionally, a "spread" across facing pages of a bound ledger (book for keeping accounting records) or on oversized sheets of paper (termed "analysis paper") ruled into rows and columnsin that format and approximately twice as wide as ordinary paper^]

Batch spreadsheet report generator

In1962this concept of the spreadsheet, called BCL for Business Computer Language, was implemented on an IBM1130and in1963was ported to an IBM7040by R. BrianWalsh at Marquette University, Wisconsin. This program was written in Fortran. Primitive timesharing was available on those machines. In1968BCL was ported by Walsh to the IBM360/67timesharing machine at Washington State University.

LANPAR spreadsheet compiler

A key invention in the development of electronic spreadsheets was made by Rene K. Pardo and Remy Landau, who filed in1970U.S. Patent 4,398,249 on a spreadsheet automaticnatural order calculation algorithm..

The LANPAR system was implemented on GE400 and Honeywell6000online timesharing systems, enabling users to program remotely via computer terminals and modems.

Autoplan/Autotab spreadsheet programming language

In1968, three former employees from the General Electric computer company headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona set out to start their own software development house.

IBM Financial Planning and Control System]

The IBM Financial Planning and Control System was developed in1976, by Brian Ingham at IBM Canada. It was implemented by IBM in at least 30 countries. It ran on an IBMmainframe and was among the first applications for financial planning developed with APL that completely hid the programming language from the end-user.

APLDOT modeling language

An example of an early "industrial weight" spreadsheet was APLDOT, developed in1976at the United States Railway Association on an IBM

The application was used successfully for many years in developing such applications as financial and costing models for the US Congress and for Conrail.

VisiCalc

Because of Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston's implementation of VisiCalc on the Apple II in1979and the IBM PC in1981, the spreadsheet concept became widely known inthe late1970s and early1980s. VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet that combined all essential features of modern spreadsheet applications

SuperCalc

SuperCalc was a spreadsheet application published by Sorcim in1980, and originally bundled (along with WordStar) as part of the CP/M software package included withthe Osborne 1 portable computer. It quickly became the de facto standard spreadsheet for CP/M and was ported to MS-DOS in1982.

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft released the first version of Excel for the Macintosh on September 30,1985, and then ported it to Windows, with the first version being numbered 2.05 andreleased in November1987.

Web based spreadsheets

With the advent of advanced web technologies such as Ajax circa2005, a new generation of online spreadsheets has emerged. Equipped with a rich Internet application userexperience, the best web based online spreadsheets have many of the features seen in desktop spreadsheet applications.

Other products

A number of companies have attempted to break into the spreadsheet market with programs based on very different paradigms. Lotus introduced what is likely the mostsuccessful example, Lotus Improv, which saw some commercial success, notably in the financial world where its powerful data mining capabilities remain well respected to this day.

Elaborate the understanding about Spreadsheets.