This Day in History

July 16, 1951

VisiCalc creator is born

VisiCalc creator Dan Bricklin was born in Philadelphia. Bricklin moved from his hometown to Boston to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and study computer science

The background proved useful during a later turn at Harvard Business School, where Bricklin teamed with Robert Frankston to design the first business spreadsheet program. The result, in 1979, was a visible calculator that automated the recalculation of spreadsheets

Bricklin and Frankston founded Software Arts Inc. and sold their program to Apple Computer and other companies, selling 100,000 copies in the first year.