✒ The history of the creation of double-entry booking, and how it evolved towards spreadsheets in computers, from VisiCalc, to Lotus 1-2-3, and then in due course, Microsoft Excel.
Also an illustration of how things can go wrong when using this revolutionary digital tool. This happens when Excel’s own functionality is combined with the mistaken assumptions of users. For example:
- Stripping off leading zeroes when you enter an international phone number.
- Rounding off the last few digits of very large integers.
- Mistaking inputs for dates.
When used by a trained accountant to carry out double-entry bookkeeping, a long-established system with inbuilt error detection, Excel is a perfectly professional tool. But when pressed into service by other professions, such as genetics researchers who need to type in the gene name “Membrane Associated Ring-CH-Type Finger 1” as “March1” for short, It may not be the right tool.