You can find these images with a quick image search, but I wanted examples of each in one place so I can see the general UI patterns. What are the common elements that a user sees? What do they have in common beyond the grid?
I should mention that a good number of these screenshots came from WinWorldPC.com, which is a great archive of all sorts of old software.
Here we go, roughly in in chronological order.
Table of object glasses from 1665
Let’s start off not entirely at the beginning, but pretty far back. What strikes me is that we have been struggling with vertical layouts for a long time.
1700’s German ledger
A german ledge containing financial transactions. It probably conforms to the FAST Standard more strictly than many .xlsx files.
Lotus 1-2-3 for MS DOS
I like the simplicity of Lotus-1-2-3 and other MS-DOS sheets. Nothing is hidden. Menus and interactions are clear. The surface area - literally and figuratively - is small.
Multiplan for MS DOS
I’ve never used Multiplan, but as far as I can tell, grids have column numbers instead of letters, and you can have multiple grid listed sequentially, each capped at a certain number of rows. I can imagine this would be convenient when it came to adding a section for aggregation calculations.
Better Working Eight-in-One for MS-DOS
Better Working Eight-in-One, from Spinnaker Software is an integrated office suite for DOS. It contains a word processor, a spelling checker, a data base, a spreadsheet, an outliner, a graphics program, a communications program and a set of desktop utilities - all in one single, consistent application. - WinWorldPC.com
Boeing Calc 300E
Did you know that Boeing made a spreadsheet product back in the 1980’s?
Javelin Plus 1.0
This one is billed as an “analysis and reporting tool” but it looks a lot like a spreadsheet. The key difference is that columns are named by what they represent rather than a sequential index.
Ability 1.0
Check out Ability for a free working version!
AppleWorks 5.0
Borland Office 2.0 For Windows 3.1
CA Compete! 4.2
It looks like a spreadsheet that is cell based, but it’s actually based on objects, meaning you have to reference data by name of the object/model. This seems like it would limit the free-form intention of a spreadsheet, but also keep you from making mistakes.
Corel Office 7 / Correl Quattro Pro 7
Essentially the same version of the same spreadsheet product, but sold with different software packages.
Lotus Improv
Excel 1.0
Excel 2.0
Excel 4.0
Excel 5.0
Excel 95
Excel 97
Excel 2000
Excel 2002
Excel 2003
Excel 2007
Excel 2010
Excel 2013
Excel 2016
OpenOffice Calc
Google Sheets 2019
Airtable 2019
Scheme In A Grid - 2019
VisiData
VD is one of the best tools to get a handle on plaintext tabular data straight from the command line. If you’ve literally got a minute, check out VisiData In 60 Seconds.