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mbrumlow
This was a good read, but now the colors are all messed up. Nothing looks normal after looking at that green background for so long...
jccalhoun
Holy Crap. That is what happened. I read it and then went to look up Multiplan and everything seemed pink. I was a little worried.
ktpsns
> My mission: write the world's first wordprocessor with a spreadsheet user-interface.

Can somebody elaborate on this?

ratboy666
The original Word for DOS had a user interface (for command selection) similar to MultiPlan, which was (similar) to VisiCalc.

Windows was not yet a thing.

cityzen
Yes! Well, sort of, but a little backstory... Yesterday, I believe, there was an article posted here called, “Perhaps it is simpler to say that Intel…was disrupted”. It was written by Steven Sinofsky (who I wasn't familiar with) but had a look at his Medium posts. There was an interesting article there titled, "Design for an “Audience of One” (https://medium.learningbyshipping.com/audience-of-one-107bad...)

Funny enough, there is a quote in there, "Did you know that a spreadsheet is a much better word processor than a word processor? After all, a word processor is just a spreadsheet with one cell."

That design for an audience of one was a great read. It may not answer all your questions but I think it will at least point you in the right direction of what he is talking about.

Btw, Steven Sinofsky is the former president of the windows division at M$.

seanmcdirmid
Sinofsky also took the blame for Microsoft’s Mexican stand-off culture when he was fired, though I think it was mainly billg and Balmer’s fault.
ThrowawayR2
If anecdotes are to be believed, Sinofsky wasn't exactly an unwilling participant either, though. Reportedly, he had no problems with squashing or grabbing control of projects that infringed on Windows' turf.
seanmcdirmid
Oh, he was definitely complicit. But he unjustly takes the fall for it all when it was a wider MS problem.
krylon
When the father of a friend retired and cleaned out his office, I ended up with Multiplan manual. It's kind of funny, because I have never used Multiplan or even seen it run, and these days I find myself swearing at Microsoft for not providing decent manuals (or any manuals at all) for many of their products. And one day, I might even read that thing, just because I can. ;-)
bdcravens
Still committed to Microsoft after all those years:

<meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12">