Microsoft Excel might not be the most thrilling computer program ever released, but it has proven to be one of the most enduring.
Almost 40 years ago, Bill Gates’ original spreadsheet was launched with the simple goal of giving accountants a quicker way of crunching numbers.
But as these nostaligic pictures show, that first piece of software looked very different to the complex tool office workers would recognise today.
Over the past four decades, the program has evolved from a clunky, black-and-white system for totting up tables into a colourful, AI-enhanced mathematical juggernaut.
Originally released on 30 September 1985, this iconic piece of software actually began development in November of the year before.
That makes Windows’ iconic app even older than the Windows operating system itself.
And while it has not always been smooth sailing, Excel has now become the go-to spreadsheet for an estimated 1.1 billion people.
This month, Microsoft Excel enters its 40th year. The program began development in 1984 but version 1 (pictured) was first launched on 30 September 1985 exclusively for the Macintosh Computer
Although it is one of Microsoft’s flagship products, Excel actually started its life on Apple computers.
Starting in November 1984, Bill Gates’ engineers began developing Excel as a replacement for Microsoft’s older Multiplan spreadsheet program.
In 1985, the software was launched at the Tavern on the Green restaurant in New York as an exclusive for the Apple Macintosh.
Compared to the modern version, Excel Version 1 was relatively simple, but it already contained many of the same recognisable features.
Users could create complex tables, use the system to perform calculations, sort data, and make simple graphs.
Despite how clunky it looks by modern standards, Excel quickly gained a reputation for its power and ease of use.
In a 1985 review in the magazine ‘MacUser’, one reviewer wrote: ‘Excel is the Uzi submachine gun of the business world.’
However, it wasn’t until September the next year that Microsoft launched the software on the Windows operating system.
Microsoft launched Excel for Windows computers in 1986 with the operating system Windows 2. This added more colour options and an expanded memory
At the time, Excel’s main competition was a software called ‘1-2-3’ produced by Lotus Software.
This software had been built specifically to work on IBM’s powerful new personal computers and was considered very sophisticated for its time.
When Excel was first released, 1-2-3 dominated the market for spreadsheet applications and had outcompeted Microsoft’s earlier software.
But as Excel began to hit Windows computers for the first time, people were immediately impressed by how much easier it was to learn and use.
Microsoft’s new software was so much easier that, by the early 1990s, Excel overtook 1-2-3 as the most popular spreadsheet software.
While this overtake would be the death blow for Lotus Software, it cemented Microsoft’s place as one of the biggest players in the software industry.
Microsoft continued to update the software regularly until Excel and the rest of the ‘Office’ apps got an overhaul for the launch of Windows 95 in 1995.
Excel 95 is particularly notable for an ‘Easter Egg’ hidden inside the software during development.
Excel received one of its biggest updates as it was relaunched for Windows 95. This version of the software is also notable for containing a hidden first-person game called ‘Hall of Tortured Souls’ which revealed a photo of the developers
By following a specific set of instructions in Excel, users could access a secret first-person video game called ‘Hall of Tortured Souls’.
The user could walk around a 3D space to find a picture of the developers along with their names.
Keeping with this tradition, Excel 97, which was released in 1996, also featured a hidden flight simulator game which could be accessed through a secret code.
This version of the software was also the introduction of ‘Clippy’, Microsoft’s much-maligned virtual assistant which had been added to help people struggling with the software.
From the year 2000, Microsoft would continue to update its software once every three years – releasing the most recent version in 2021.
Throughout its development, Microsoft Excel has become one of the most widely used and important computer programs for business worldwide.
Beyond its sheer number of users, Excel’s importance is clear from the magnitude of the disasters that have been attributed to poor spreadsheet formatting.
For example, in 2010 the intelligence agency MI5 revealed that it had accidentally tapped 134 incorrect phone numbers due to a ‘formatting fault’ in its spreadsheets.
Windows 97 added the ‘Clippy’ Windows assistant which would offer help to people struggling with the software
It later emerged that the program had been told to round up the numbers so that the last few digits of the phone numbers all became zeros.
Likewise, in 2020, Public Health England ‘misplaced’ 15,841 positive Covid-19 test results after workers tried to import a file that was too big for Excel to handle.
Excel also became so important for research that scientists were forced to rename several human genes to stop the software from misformatting them.
Researchers had complained for years that there was no way of stopping Excel from converting names for genes, like MARCH1, into dates, such as 1-Mar.
Eventually, the scientists decided it was simpler to rename 27 different human genes than to try and find an alternative to Excel.
And, for those who truly love this essential piece of software, there is even the Microsoft Excel World Champion held in Las Vegas each year.
