Lotus Improv on the NeXT

I had my first experience with spreadsheets in the early ’90s using Improv (in Hanover, home of CeBIT, there were lots of exotic computers available cheaply on the “second-hand” market).

Thanks to my experience with Improv, I later found it extremely easy to work with multidimensional data. In fact, I recently built an in-browser version of it. (Regardless of that, I highly recommend that everyone take a look at “PivotTable.js” [1]. Essentially, a direct implementation of the Lotus Improv UI.

[1] https://pivottable.js.org/examples/

> "Then, to throw a little extra wrinkle into the mix, there was Lotus’s product strategy on the PC. If Improv wasn’t your thing, maybe their other Windows spreadsheet, 1-2-3/Windows, would feel more comfortable. Or their other-other option, Lotus Symphony. Or their other-other-other option, Lotus Works. Or their other-other-other-other option, Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS Release 4, which went on sale in 1994."

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