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Cleaning out some stuff today and came across a box of Lotus123 installation diskettes …. That was the popular spreadsheet back in the days – what ever happen to that program? I remember how pissed I was when the company I was working for decided to switch to excel when all company info was in Lotus, which I thought was a very good program --- guess Microsoft killed it. I think it was bought out IBM.

In reply to birdseye

I still have some of those disks and files around.

In reply to Casper

Guess there are some millennials around saying – what the hell is Lotus123?

In reply to birdseyedo you remember " wang" ?

Lotus and it’s counterpart.....word perfect

Both were supposed to be “better” than excel and word rrspecively

But Darwinism doesn’t only apply to humans

Like Novell.....they were swallowed up by the Microsoft behemoth

Betamax was supposed to be “better” than VHS too

Reel to Reel vastly superior to cassette

Etc etc

In reply to birdseye

I have it on my zip drive

delete

In reply to Casper

I have IBM 10-20 MB, 3.5"Formatted Diskettes.
My son's first job was to create files, from binders for me.

In reply to imusic

yes 'word perfect, i forgotten about that
this was the server standard - i remember getting a certificate in network administration from Novell - Damn! thats a lifetime ago... wang i never had mush association with, but i knew of it....

In reply to imusic

Applies to technology more than any other specie

Lotus 123 spreadsheet
Lotus AMI-Pro word processor (renamed to Word-pro when IBM bought the suite)
Lotus Notes - Email/Messaging manager

Combined as a package named Lotus SmartSuite. They were the ones that introduced OLE (object linking and embedding) to manage the seamless integration of components of the suite. Microsoft struggled to compete in that regard.

I'm associated with an outfit which still uses Lotus Notes.

In reply to birdseye

Virtually everything IBM touched turned to dust in that era.IBM pushed OS/2 + Notes/123 like crazy and virtually nobody bought into that ecosystem.

In reply to Drapsey

Man you remember stuff – this was cutting edge PC computing/data s sharing then --- how did they loss their way, management fell asleep? --- well I think IBM mindset was more was still more focused on the Mainframe computing

What about the netscape browser and askjeeves search engine?
Dbase 3 for database management.
I miss lotus and wordperfect
Booting in dos and then loading windows

In reply to birdseye

Round about that time IBM had 21% share in Microsoft. For them it was a win/win situation whether Lotus SmartSuite triumphed over the then Microsoft competing title(s) or not.

For some reason (Lotus) IBM Notes still operates (satisfactorily) in corporate America at the chagrin of the competing MS OutLook.

In reply to imusic

You showing your age,I never mastered Lotus.

In reply to culpepperboy

I still boot from dos command prompt sometimes , particularly if I do a little Python programming and just want to step thru some routines

In reply to Drapsey

I remember driving home from school one night and listening to the Barry Gray show (Gray was a pioneer in talk radio), and the conversation was how IBM had fired their CEO, a guy name Smith because he wanted to take the company away from mainframe computing to desktop computers…. The idea was the shortsightedness of the IBM board then

If you want a fascinating look at IBM's downfall , look for a video on Youtube called The Decline of IBM from the The Market is Open channel.A pretty clear cut example what happens when you hand the company over to the beancounters , overvalue stock performance/buyouts and stop innovating.

In reply to birdseye

Yes.

Along with dBase and FoxPro I think it was.

I know a few orgs that still run Lotus Notes to this day

In reply to djdrastic

except they still have Watson

In reply to nick2020

Worked with both of them – there were several iterations of dBase – they were initially DOS based then they migrated to windows versions - I am sure I have a lot of diskettes around with lots a data in dBase data on them ----

In reply to birdseye

wasn't it Word Perfect that coined the term What You See Is What You Get (WISIWYG) pronounced wizzy wig ??

I was a Novell Netware guru for the entire Caribbean region back in my early days at ICL (International Computer Limited). I frowned at Windows NT 3.5 when it was first launched but boy did I learn a lesson as I watched that unfold. Netware was a solid network OS but they were not nimble enough to survive.

I am pretty certain that the Lotus suite was sold to Novell before it met it's demise....how come no one mentioned the 5 1/4 floppy disks? and what about token ring cabling? don't get me started

In reply to hotarobin

I am inclined to think you are right on that one---- the WISIWYG – you could be right on that too – I am wondering if it was more a programming acronym – ala – LIFO – last in first out --- like recursion routine

In reply to hotarobin

This is what COVID –quarantine, stay at home does to you --- make you remember ancient past

In reply to birdseye

Speaking of COVID . One of the big things touted by the Watson and the Quantum Computing people was record time antiviral drug discoveries.
Boy if there was ever a time for it to shine it would be now.

In reply to birdseye

Do you recall DataEase? It was before FoxPro.


Lotus 123 was the boss!

In reply to djdrastic

True true --- maybe we should just buy some IBM share and hope something like that happen

just check - IBM has been on a steady rise