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Twenty years ago today, June 19, 1989, one of the pivotal software programs of the time shipped -- the third major release of the pioneering spreadsheet program, Lotus 1-2-3 (R). It featured, among other things, such innovative new capabilities as multiple sheets in memory simultaneously (then called "3D mode"), the ability to pull data from external databases, and a portable file format and code (one of the first production PC programs to be largely written in a high-level language -- C) that enabled versions to run on VAX/VMS, UNIX, and IBM mainframes.
"Godiva" as it was codenamed (after the chocolate, not the Lady) also supported true virtual memory and was the first application program to run in so-called "protected mode" on 286 and 386 processors at the time. The Godiva QA team invented automated testing, using 1-2-3's macro facility to test itself, and all checkins required passing an automated "minitest." We take all these for granted now but at the time it was, in short, incredibly innovative.
It was also unbelievably hard -- there were many very late nights, and on some, executives like Jim Manzi, Christine O'Connor, and others cooked gourmet meals for the development team who as often as not stayed well into the early morning hours.
Here is the picture we took exactly 20 years ago today; this was a full page ad in the Boston Globe that day:
That's me in the red dot. The creases in the photo are from my amateurish scans of the poster -- a full size scan is here.
I think I learned more about programming from people in this photo than anyone else: people like David Reed, the late and still-missed Carl Young, Bob Frankston, John Talbot, and many others; and about management from people like June Rokoff, Chris McGrath, Frank Ingari and Frank King.
Of course, the rest is history: in 1995 Lotus was acquired, and thereafter in my view rather lost its way, which is why I now work at the one remaining company still absolutely passionate about software.
Yet Godiva was an incredibly intense experience (I still remember bug numbers assigned to me) -- and I never want to repeat it, mind you, but it's a great memory, and I'm proud to have worked on it with all the great people in the photo.
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