This will likely be a trivial thing for most of you. It might interest a few. Remember that spreadsheet that I provided a download for, Sphygmic Software Spreadsheet? Well..
Okay, a link;
https://www.andrewnile.co.uk/blog/forgo ... r-windows/
It's fairly dry reading. What I want to draw attention too:
What do the following spreadsheet programs have in common?:
Sphygmic Software Spreadsheet (1994, pictured),
Surpass Spreadsheet (1995),
VistaCalc (by Brandon Fridley, 1995), and
Techmarc SpreadPro (1999-2002)?
Answer: They all use the same spreadsheet engine, albeit different versions.
Formula One is a common control that allows a programmer to insert an entire spreadsheet application into whatever program you are writing. The four programs mentioned above are simply nice wrappers around said control; observe my daft attempt at making my own:
The native file format is .VTS (Visual Tools Spreadsheet), but I doubt you'll encounter many of those files anywhere. If you do, SpreadPro 2.1 can open documents made in any version. Formula One could export data to other file formats, so SpreadPro is a great conduit for conversion.
Versions
I currently know of these versions. The control was ported from a Visual Basic Extension to ActiveX around 2006. I don't know if a 16-bit version was maintained in parallel for a while.
I suspect 6.1.6.2 is the final version ever made; it was still the latest version of the control in 2007. It seems it was quietly discontinued in 2008, although it could've been transferred to another company that I haven't found out about yet.
Version Date Filename
1.02.08 1994-04-27 vtss.vbx
1.02.16 1994-06-13 vtss.vbx
2.0.0.1 1994-11-03 vtss.vbx
2.0.3.8 1995-02-08 vtss.vbx
3.0.4.3 1995-10-28 vcf132.ocx
3.1.3.1 1996-02-22 vcf132.ocx
4.0.1.2 1996-12-03 vcf132.ocx
4.1.0.5 1997-02-07
4.1.2.2 1997-11-13 vcf132.ocx
5.0.6.2 1999-03-10 vcf15.ocx
6.0.0.13 1999-09-09 vcf16.ocx
6.0.1.3 1999-09-15 vcf16.ocx
6.1.5.12 2000-10-11 ttf16.ocx
6.1.5.13 2002-05-29 ttf16.ocx
6.1.6.2 2003-01-24 ttf16.ocx
I imagine the Formula One engine was intended for use within specialist programs, rather than as standalone spreadsheet programs for the public.
The point being is that the Spreadsheet program is built using common control(s)... that someone *could* code/build/make a wrapper around....
I think the company that was responsible for the common controls may have changed hands a few times... I believe that I had tracked down their modern-day successor and it looked to me as though they currently were offering server-side files for conversions/making spreadsheet or word processing files...
Anyway, that word processing program that I linked to (WordWright), also used a common controls from the same peeps (or their successors or ancestors)...
It's not too difficult to imagine someone writing better software around those common controls...
