ViewSheet is a

spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in c ...

program produced in the 1980s by Acornsoft for use with the

BBC Micro The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a family of microcomputers developed and manufactured by Acorn Computers in the early 1980s as part of the BBC's Computer Literacy Project. Launched in December 1981, it was showcased across severa ...

and

Acorn Electron The Acorn Electron (nicknamed the Elk inside Acorn and beyond) was introduced as a lower-cost alternative to the BBC Micro educational/home computer, also developed by Acorn Computers, to provide many of the features of that more expensive mach ...

microcomputer A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (P ...

s. It was distributed as a pre-installed

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

with some computer models, such as the

Master Master, master's or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles In education: *Master (college), head of a college *Master's degree, a postgraduate or sometimes undergraduate degree in the specified discipline *Schoolmaster or master, presiding office ...

. ViewSheet was written by Mark Colton.

Description

ViewSheet supports spreadsheets of up to 255 by 255 cells in size. Each cell can contain a number, formula or text label. Cells are referred to as ''slots'' in the official Acornsoft documentation. The program is supplied with a keyboard card listing the various commands, which on the BBC Micro is placed under the clear plastic strip above the function keys. The spreadsheet is entered by typing *SHEET. All BBC Micro screen modes are supported, and the background and foreground colours can be changed by use of Ctrl-S,n,n,0,0,0 key sequences. The program supports user-defined windows that can display cells from various different parts of the spreadsheet within the same screen. This is useful in lieu of a

WIMP WiMP is a music streaming service available on mobile devices, tablets, network players and computers. WiMP, standing for "Wireless Music Player," was a music streaming service that emphasized high-quality audio. WiMP offered music and podcast ...

environment, as it saves the user the inconvenience of moving back and forth around the spreadsheet to view cells which are far apart from each other. ViewSheet supports saving of spreadsheets to both disk and tape and printing to both serial and parallel printers. These operations are performed in ''command mode'', which also allows changing various options such as VDU settings and screen resolution. The program also integrates with Acornsoft's ''View'' word processor, allowing mixing of spreadsheet data and word processor text within the same printout. There's also a built-in facility for generating character-based bar charts. Cells can be left or right justified and formatted according to a user specified layout. Numeric values are stored internally as five-byte

floating point In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic on subsets of real numbers formed by a ''significand'' (a signed sequence of a fixed number of digits in some base) multiplied by an integer power of that base. Numbers of this form ...

numbers. The ViewSheet file format is documented on page 128 of the supplied user guide, which also contains an example

BBC BASIC BBC BASIC is an interpreted version of the BASIC programming language. It was developed by Acorn Computers Ltd when they were selected by the BBC to supply the computer for their BBC Literacy Project in 1981. It was originally supplied on ...

program to print out values from a saved spreadsheet. ''ViewSheet'' takes advantage of a second

6502 The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small ...

processor, which triples the amount of memory available for spreadsheets, assuming the default screen mode is used (mode 3).

Critical reception

ViewSheet was reviewed by Gordon Taylor in the January 1985 edition of ''A&B computing'' and a book ''ViewSheet and Viewstore: A Dabhand Guide by Graham Bell'' was published by ''Dabs Press'' in 1989. David Brown, in his review for ''The Micro User'' states that ViewSheet "succeeds in providing all the basic spreadsheet functions in a well presented package". Although, he also cites several shortcomings of the program, writing "In conclusion, Viewsheet's major failing is to provide adequate facilities for textual labelling." and finishes by noting "Acornsoft is capable of producing better programs".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Viewsheet 1984 software Spreadsheet software Acorn Computers BBC Micro and Acorn Electron software