Spreadsheets are one of the main reasons that computers became prominent to use for administrational tasks. The system of having a bunch of rows and columns that could be filled with massive heaps of data and complex formulas gave computers a huge edge over using write-only paper. Unlike the static nature of paper, spreadsheets could be edited indefinitely and the computations would alter any data that was connected to other data by formulas declared for our convenience. The first spreadsheet was probably LANPAR (LANguage for Programming Arrays at Random), which came into use in 1969. LANPAR was used on the huge computers that wouldn’t fit on a desk. In fact computers back then were too big to fit even in a simple office room. In 1979 there finally was VisiCalc that enabled spreadsheets on personal computers, currently also known as desktop computers because of their more usable size.
We still use spreadsheets. Even though we now have programs and apps for most of the more specific boring computing.
