Visicalc manual

We first shipped about five copies of version 1. I hand typed the labels. The first "real" release, version 1. Entry in my journal: First complete VisiCalc in a package was October 19, I received a copy the next day as I recall. The reference card was written by me. For additional information, see the Global Shipping Program terms and conditions - opens in a new window or tab. Located in:. Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States.

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Seller assumes all responsibility for this listing. Item specifics. Modified Item:. United States. Custom Bundle:. User Manual. The edit line reads C1: D1. M1, or whether the coordinate 81 should be interpreted as relative to the position of the formula. In other words, we want the for- mula to be relative; each new sales figure should be 1.

Press the letter R and watch the screen. The cursor remains at C1, where we started, and numbers appear in the visible columns. Use the. VisiCalc has "typed" the formulas for you, and calculated the sales values for all twelve months. At M1, the twelfth month's sales should be shown as VisiCalc offers many more options for the replicate command, and we will cover these in succeeding chapters.

For the present, however, remember these five easy steps for replicating a formula: 1 Point the cursor at the entry position you want to replicate. To complete our twelve month pro- jection, we would like to replicate the formulas for cost of goods sold and gross profit.

At the moment, the entry contents line shows the formula for cost of goods,. Our next project is to replicate both of these formulas across the sheet simultaneously. When you were finished, you would come back to the formula for gross profit at 83 and replicate it into the same range of columns as you did for We can accomplish both of these steps at once: Type.

Instead of pointing at the first and last positions as we did before, we will type the coordinates of the target range. Type C2. M2, VisiCalc will assume that the formula at 82 for cost of goods is to be replicated at posi- tions C2 through M2, and the formula at 83 for gross profit is to be replicated at positions C3 through M3. In other words, we must enter each range for row 2 and for row 3 separately.

Do we want the formula at coordinate 81 to be interpreted as "absolute" N or as relative R to each month's sales? Hence we want 81, the coordinate for SALES, to be interpreted as relative to the position of each copy of the formula.

For the formula at 82, we want the sales figure just above it, or For the formula at C2, we want the sales figure just above it or C1; and so on. VisiCalc is ready to replicate the formula for gross profit, at 83, into positions C3 through M3.

Again, we want 81 to be interpreted as relative to the position of each copy of the formula. Press the letter R again. Press R once more. Numbers will appear in the other columns of row 3, and the prompt and edit lines will go blank. Use the arrow keys to move the cursor to the right and up and down to examine the formulas and calculated results displayed in columns C, D, E and so on.

VisiCalc has saved you a good deal of work already. But these numbers are somewhat hard to read, because they fill the columns and don't always line up. Can we do better than this? Formatting the Screen Display Of course. In fact, we can change the whole sheet a "global" change to an integer format.

If you scroll the. However, this does not mean that VisiCalc has actually rounded the numbers that it uses in its calculations. Each number is calculated and maintained with up to eleven significant digits or decimal places so that, for instance, each new period's sales is based on an accurate rendition of the previous period's sales. The numbers are rounded only as they are displayed on the screen. Perhaps you'd prefer to see two more decimal places, for "dollars and cents. A moment ago, you used the letter I to change all of the numbers to integer format.

Notice how the screen display changes to show everything in dollars and cents form. You can, for example, set the format of each entry position individually, instead of globally.

These options will be covered more fully in lessons Three and Four of this Tutorial. Imagine the situation if you were preparing a more complex income projection, with many rows of numbers for selling and administrative costs, taxes, and so on.

It would be difficult to remember what each row of figures represented, once the titles had scrolled off the screen. So, let's look at a way to keep our left edge titles visible, no matter how far we scroll to the right. First, put the cursor back to the left edge, where the titles are.

The possible keystrokes are:. H To fix horizontal titles. V To fix vertical titles. B For both horizontal and vertical. N For neither. Press the letter V to tell VisiCalc to fix the vertical column A, where the cursor lies, in its present position, as the left hand column of the screen. Notice that column A stays fixed in place while the remaining columns scroll to the left, disappearing when they reach column A. You are "bumping" into column A, just as you bumped into the left edge of the sheet earlier.

How are these formulas related? The formula for COST at 82 is. What about succeeding columns? At C1, the formula is 1. At D1 we have 1. Just type a new number, such as How long did it take to recalculate twelve months' worth of sales, cost of goods and gross profit formulas?

Scroll the screen window to the right to view M1, the ending month's sales. For simplicity's sake, we've designed this example so that the only changeable figure is the initial SALES.

Since the figures 1. A better approach would be to write the factors 1. If we did this, changing the sales growth and cost of goods percentages would be as easy as changing the initial sales. We'll make use of techniques like this in Lesson Three in an example related to personal bUdgeting.

Adjusting Column Widths For some time now, you've been scrolling the window back and forth across the sheet to view the figures for different months. You might be wishing for a larger screen that would display more columns at once. In an instant, the screen changes to display more columns. Each column has been narrowed from nine characters to seven characters in width. Given a column width, VisiCalc will fit as many columns as it can across the screen.

Note that you can only set column widths globally, not individually. Right now, the dollars and cents figures just about fill up the available space in these 7-character columns. Now that we have some extra space, we can narrow the columns further. VisiCalc leaves an extra character blank to the left of each value.

This "re- served" space has been included to keep the display from running large values together. Labels, however, do not have this extra space. The entry contents line again displays our true label A3 L -GROSS- Even though the columns have been narrowed, the full alphabetic labels are preserved.

These labels can be more than nine characters long. In fact, you can type an alphabetic label as long as you like, regardless of the current column width, and the full label will be preserved.

But, suppose we'd really like to keep the wider columns and the cursor at B1, the initial sales figure, and change it, while watching what happens to the final sales and gross profit at column M. If only we had two screens You have created two screen windows. Each one can be scrolled inde- pendently to view any portion of the electronic sheet.

At present, the cursor is in the left hand window. The left window will scroll downwards to follow the cursor, but the right window will remain still. VisiCalc must sometimes narrow these widths to accom- modate the extra border that split windows add to the screen. Whether VisiCalc narrows columns or not depends on width requirements.

Press the semicolon; key to jump the cursor into the right hand window. We now have both the beginning and ending months' sales, cost of goods and gross profit figures visible at the same time. Press; again. The cursor jumps back to the left window. Each time you press the; key; the cursor jumps from one window to the other. Notice that the cursor has landed at the same position it was on when we last jumped out of the left hand window. Now we can change the initial sales figure and watch what happens in the final month.

Notice that during recalculation an! Try typing a few more numbers with the cursor at B1. See if you can find, by trial and error, the initial sales figure that. Hint: You can type a number with a decimal point, even though it will be displayed in rounded form.

We have seen that the idea of a split screen is useful. Can we get any more mileage out of this approach? Take a look at the screen, and notice how much of it is empty. Perhaps we can use the lower part of the screen to better advantage. This time the screen is split horizontally into a top and bottom window. Press the; key to move the cursor into the bottom window. Both windows are now displaying the same portion of the electronic sheet! The cursor should be at B1 in the bottom window.

Change the number at B1 to in the bottom window, and watch what happens. The recalculation affects both windows. Now you can see the figures for the first and the last months at the same time.

Global Commands in Separate Windows VisiCalc allows you to have different column widths in each window. To accom- plish this, press; to move the cursor into the top window. You've just done a global column change. Now let's try a global format change. Begin by pressing; to move the cursor to the bottom window. The calculated results are too large to display in integer form in the narrow columns of the top window, or with two decimal places in the bottom window.

It should be Summary You have covered a lot of ground in this lesson. We encourage you to review any points you might have had difficulty with and to try your own experiments.

The more you work with VisiCalc, observing and analyzing the results, the more quickly you will master it for your own work. Just remember the following key points: 1. No matter what you type at the keyboard. Moreover, it's fairly difficult to destroy your own work on the electronic sheet, particularly if you watch the prompt line for keystroke-by-keystroke feedback and save the sheet periodically on diskette.

Throughout this lesson, we have introduced only four new com- mands. They are:. Much of the power of VisiCalc is due to the simple and highly consistent way in which these commands interact with one another. In almost any context, a command will do what you would logically expect. Aside from the replicate command, which basically saves you time as you write formulas, all of the commands discussed in this lesson affect only the appearance of your work on the screen generally in an effort to compensate for a small screen size.

Nothing you might do with the IG, IT or IW commands can affect the labels, numbers or formulas actually written on the sheet. Armed with these assurances, you should be ready to experiment. Clear the screen and tryout these commands with a problem of your own.

If you don't understand something, go back through this lesson to see what you might have missed. Once you under- stand the fundamentals of this lesson, you'll know enough about VisiCalc to begin using it effectively.

ROM or "Read Only Memory" is manufactured with a fixed pattern of data or program instructions stored in it. RAM or "Random Access Memory" is made in such a way that it retains data that is put into it only as long as the memory's electric power is left on or until new data is put into the memory in place of the old data.

Data or program instructions are put into RAM memory either by typing at the keyboard or by loading prerecorded programs or data from cassette or diskette.

VisiCalc manages this area of memory automatically. You never have to concern yourself with the details of how the electronic sheet is maintained. But you will find it useful to have a general idea of how the sheet works as you begin using VisiCalc to its fullest capacity. Essentially, VisiCalc reconfigures the electronic sheet dynamically. That is, VisiCalc expands the size and shape of the sheet as you use it. You actually start with a 1 by 1 sheet, starting and ending at position A1.

Although you can. Then the sheet grows into a rectangle just large enough to include the right- most and bottommost positions in which something is written. If you type a long message or formula at a particular entry position, VisiCalc will reserve addi- tional bytes of memory for the position, but all of the other positions on the sheet will remain just large enough to hold the information which you have written in them. This is called "dynamic memory allocation.

The memory indicator is the two-digit number located in the right corner of the prompt line just below the letter C. This number is the amount of memory in kilobytes still available for additional entries on the sheet. With 32K of memory, this number should be 06 or close to it. The memory indicator will vary as you write information on the sheet or use commands such as replicate, to write information.

As you move further downwards and to the right, writing labels, numbers and formulas, more and more memory is used until the available memory is ex- hausted.

If you finally exhaust all of the available memory, VisiCalc will flash the exclamation point in the upper right corner of the screen, replace the memory indicator with the letter M, and refuse to write anything more on the sheet. To sum up, VisiCalc manages memory efficienctly and automatically.

Because memory is dynamically allocated and the sheet is reconfigured to suit your needs, you can work ahead of yourself in terms of memory. Note, however, that if you have a relatively small amount of memory, you certainly shouldn't be wasteful with it. Aside from noticing from time to time how much space is still available for you to write in more entry positions, you need not concern your- self with problems of memory management.

Shrinking the Sheet One thing VisiCalc does not do automatically, however, is to "shrink" the sheet. Suppose that you have written on various portions of the sheet, causing it to grow to a size of by positions. Later, having finished with this informa- tion, you might have erased or blanked out the entry positions near the right and bottom edges of the by sheet.

However, the sheet will remain configured as by , although each empty position will require only 2 bytes. If you begin using additional memory by writing lengthy labels and formulas in other positions, you may want to shrink the sheet to the smallest possible configuration for the information still written on it.

As the disk file is loaded, VisiCalc will enter on the sheet only those labels, numbers and formulas actually saved, and in the process the sheet will grow from a 1 by 1 configura- tion to just the size you need for the information remaining. This will make more memory space available for additional labels and formulas.

In Lesson Three we will expand on the use of previously learned commands, bringing them into more powerful combinations. To present these new combinations and to introduce new commands, we will set up a household budget as our example. We will supplement this example with suggestions on how you can adapt it to your personal use.

Continue to work carefully through the examples and experiment to deepen your under- standing. You skill in using VisiCalc will grow proportionally with the amount of practice you have with it. Let's begin with a clean slate. Load the VisiCalc program into your computer as described in the section entitled "Loading VisiCalc," or, if you already have the program running, clear the sheet by typing ICY To prepare a budget, we'll first project our income for the next twelve months.

We'll also project various necessary expenses such as food, rent or mortgage, telephone, etc. Then we'll use VisiCalc to find out how much of our income is left for leisure and for savings and what percentage of our income is going for each category of ex- pense.

Finally we'll consider various enhancements such as calculating the interest on our savings account. Setting up for the Budget Sheet Let's begin by laying out twelve months or periods across the sheet. At this point, we have three choices as to how to number the twelve periods. First, you could just type in the numbers 1 through 12 from 81 through M1.

Second, you could type in a few numbers and replicate the rest, using the cursor to point to the extra coordinate positions. Third, you could type in the beginning number 1 at 81 and replicate that number with a relative formula that would add 1 to each previous number.

For speed in setting up the sheet, let's use the third method. After all, we know from our earlier example that a label at A1 with twelve periods months, years, etc.

If we weren't sure how many columns we would have to use, method two would be preferred. With the cursor at 81, type in the number 1, our starting numeral and press the. Let's put our initial "counting formula" at C1.

A counting formula should add one to each previous number, right? Now, let's replicate this formula from D1 to M1. The edit line reads C1. Type D1. M1 01 is our starting position; the period is our coordinate delimiter; and M1 is the final coordinate. The edit line should read C1. C1: D1. The prompt and edit lines should go blank. Move the cursor out to column M to check your work. Posi- tion M1 should show the number Replicating Numbers and Labels To start filling in our budget sheet, type the following characters.

Now let's fill in the figure for all twelve months. Of course: a number is actually the simplest case of a formula. For the target range, type C2. The number should now appear in all twelve columns, in positions 82 through M2. Next, we'll draw a line across the sheet. Whatever character or characters we type next will be repeated to fill the entry position A3. Is this any different from typing the hyphens manually? The ever-useful replicate command will also replicate labels.

You should now have a line of hyphens extend- ing all the way to column M. Using Formulas For Flexibility Before we go any further, let's think about what we've done. To save ourselves the trouble of typing the number twelve times, we replicated this number.

That's fine as far as it goes, but is it the best way to handle our income? It would be better if we could change the income figure for all twelve months by just typing a new figure for the first month and taking advantage of VisiCalc's re- calculation feature.

Let's replicate a formula instead of a number. Either way we can change the income for all twelve months simply by typing a new number at Think further. What if we should get a raise in the sixth month?

However, VisiCalc wouldn't repli- cate this change to later months, because all figures are based on If, on the other hand, each formula refers to the previous month the RELATIVE case , we can simply type a new number in month 6 and "propagate" the change through months Type R to make the coordinate 82 relative. When the replicate command has finished, use the. Were you able to foresee the way in which the change would be propagated? Naturally, it will copy anything in G2. Our next task is to list our expense categories and estimate monthly amounts for each category.

Some expenses will vary from month to month, and other expenses will occur perhaps only every six months. We will leave these blank for the moment. You can either type the following exactly as shown, or you can use the arrow keys to move the cursor and save yourself some keystrokes. Hint: to take full advantage of the arrow keys, type all the alphabetic labels first.

At this point your screen should look like the screen photo below:. Next, we would like to replicate the monthly expense figures in column B across for the remaining eleven months. Remember our discussion of the merits of replicating a number versus a formula for our monthly income?

To give ourselves maximum flexibility, we should also replicate relative formulas for the monthly expenses. Once again, the replicate command comes to our aid. This time, we'll replicate a formula down a column instead of across a row. Replicating Down a Column Make sure that the cursor is at C2. Just as we copied 82 to C2, we will want to copy 84 to C4, 85 to C5, and so on.

Therefore, we want to treat the coordinate 82 as relative. The cursor jumps back to C2, and the edit line acknowledges that the target range will start at C4. Next, press the..

The edit line now reads C2. The edit line reads C2: CL;. We want this coordinate to be rela- tive: Press R A column of numbers, from to , appears in column C. Use the.. We also have formulas at C5 and C10, but we can easily eliminate them. You can use either the.. Replicating a Column Several Times We now have the formulas we want for each expense category.

The next step is to replicate these formulas across the rows through month Think back to Lesson Two. Do you remember how we replicated a source range of formulas across the rows for both COST of goods sold. We can do the same thing here. The edit line shows C4 followed by the small rectangle.

Now point to each coordinate in that range by pressing the. C11 followed by the small rectangle. Type D4. A downloadable PicoCalc. Your Pico-8 just got down to business. VisiCalc's Handles numbers as big as Get informed of division by zero, number overflow, and more. System Requirements A registered copy of Pico-8 running locally on your machine v0. Usage Notes There are a few small things to keep in mind when using PicoCalc in any non-trivial capacity.

If you've never used VisiCalc, the usage of PicoCalc will be very difficult to understand. Please do look at the manual to get yourself started.