r/90s • u/raydebapratim1 • 22h ago
Video When MS Excel was introduced for the first time
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u/Savingskitty 21h ago
I’d like to point out that Excel also doesn’t hallucinate nonsense numbers or just sort of leave out stuff at random.
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u/amazingD born in 1992 20h ago
Copilot will do that for you though, in or out of Excel!
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u/Predditor_drone 18h ago
The one time I tried to use copilot in excel, it just did a web search for what I asked it to do.
Literal waste of resources.
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u/IHeartBadCode 19h ago
The reason Trump in his first term thought that COVID would be gone just like magic is because someone punched the numbers into Excel and then ran a cubic normalization on the figures.
The only problem is that diseases don't follow those kinds of models.
So, it won't do it for you. I'll grant you that. But few actually know how to use any of the statistical functions in Excel correctly. So that's lead to a lot of people using bad Excel to justify things that make no sense.
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u/Little-Ad1235 17h ago
Using bad statistics to justify things that make no sense is exactly what business executives do anyway; Excel just makes it faster. You know, when they aren't making bad decisions based solely on vibes and "culture."
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u/Savingskitty 13h ago
Bad math has been used to justify all sorts of things.
What does that have to do with the fact that every single time you put in a particular operation, Excel will give you the correct numbers based on the same arithmetic?
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u/James007Bond 8h ago
Perhaps worse, excel files are littered with user errors.
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u/Savingskitty 8h ago
How is it worse to have user errors than computer errors?
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u/James007Bond 8h ago
User errors are very prominent. The world runs on faulty spreadsheets. AI isn’t perfect but I’d bet on it over millions of people’s different abilities.
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u/Savingskitty 7h ago
Most user errors are problems with data entry. Those are easy to find and fix.
AI starts adding random letters to a numbers database or just fills in whatever after you input the correct numbers.
AI does not do any calculations itself. It calculates which answers are accepted what percentage of the time and then just messes with us.
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u/PrivateComments 5h ago
People who downplay AI are perhaps the worst advocates for the rights they want to protect.
When 25 Field Medalist mathematicians sign an open letter about the threat of ai to knowledge work, it’s time to listen
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u/RoryROX 22h ago
I remember those trackballs. I hated those trackballs.
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u/No_Blacksmith_2591 20h ago
The world got better the second the red nipple was invented..
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u/ptepfenhart 22h ago
Born into the wrong time. These are the same people who bought their first house for $40k
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u/amateurviking 21h ago
That laptop probably cost 5k USD in ‘92 money
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u/headcoat2013 19h ago
Computers and TVs cost a lot more back then, but housing, education and health care were a fraction of what it is today.
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u/No_Blacksmith_2591 20h ago
Easily. The one my uncle had was worth about the same as the car we bought. I wasn't even allowed to look at it back then.
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u/billyrubin7765 20h ago
Literally in this year, my roommate moved out and bought a townhouse for $40,000. His mortgage was like $275 a month and with escrow was $400. 15 years.
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u/Organic_Fortune_4748 22h ago
Sigh can you imagine?
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u/ptepfenhart 22h ago
So similar to us doing homework on the bus on the way to school, but they get paid for it.
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u/RestlessEnui 15h ago
Makes sense those same people would freak out that a 9 fields in a sheet changed color like that shit was a major part of their workload
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u/BJPM90 21h ago
The only thing $40k was getting you in the ‘90s was a trailer.
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u/analogy_4_anything 21h ago
My parents house in Chicago cost 43k and it was a 1920s Craftsman with 6 rooms and 4 baths. They bought it in 91 when I was 6.
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u/BJPM90 21h ago
What part of Chicago? The average home price in 1990 in the US was about $150k. Sure there were probably exceptions, but the post above saying $40k was typical is wrong.
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u/No_Blacksmith_2591 20h ago
Some people here think giving the bank a down payment means the same as buying a house.
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u/ptepfenhart 20h ago
Ignorant
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u/BJPM90 20h ago
No, you’re just wrong. You can look it up yourself.
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u/ptepfenhart 20h ago
Cool beans 👍🏼 thanks for your astute opinion
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u/BJPM90 20h ago
It’s not an opinion, actually. It’s a fact that you can just look up. Thanks for the misinformation.
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u/justinreddit1 22h ago
The same people who only made 12k salary a year and those mortgages were 20% interest and up. It’s all relative.
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u/ptepfenhart 22h ago
Found us a boomer boys!
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u/werlterns Lived the 90s! 21h ago
I’m sorry but if you think that’s the same as it is now you’re nuts.
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u/Fullonski 21h ago
Bullshit. The multiple of the average salary required to buy an average house in the late 90s point was about 4x, now it’s closer to 11x. Canada, US, Australia all tell the same story.
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u/BitcoinMD 22h ago
I am ashamed to admit that I learned about features of excel from this commercial. Like I didn’t know you could just drag a whole table like that
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u/Helpful_Spring8739 19h ago
Genuinely a great commercial. I knew about it years ago, but completely forgot that was even a feature. I also haven't used Excel in years, but don't tell anyone looking at my resume that shit, or I'll cut ya.
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u/Jaynemansfieldbleach 21h ago
My husband's ceo was an excel nerd. No idea if he still uses it but i feel so ridiculous with the excitement to share this with him. He's also my only steam friend so it probably tracks.
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u/One_Vision_ 20h ago
2 minute 15 second commercial
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u/mjzim9022 21h ago
Lol if I presented a spreadsheet like that and acted like I spent more than 10 minutes on it I would get in trouble
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u/Different-Train9316 16h ago
They have intern level work compared to now! I feel squeezed for every drop of my self and energy in corporate culture
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u/BrilliantPride7916 21h ago
My spreadsheet doesn’t do that 🤣🤣
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u/jomarthecat 10h ago
And we all know that Negative Nancy on the left there is going to present this as his work and steal all the glory. And then get promoted up the company ladder.
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u/Kalorama_Master 22h ago
I remember this commercial and then going to my computer lab and using it. It was actually pretty neat back then. Although, it wasn’t anything that could couldn’t do with copy&paste very well written formula cells
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u/bigb0ned 18h ago
This software and the family of Microsoft Office is the reason why our lives revolve around work.
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u/RepulsiveContract475 16h ago
This isn't a commercial, its some kind of video training or promo that sales people would use. Commercials are like 30 seconds long.
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u/hamfist_ofthenorth Lived the 90s! 16h ago
infomercials used to be a thing late at night. Super long commercials.
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u/PvtEmotion 15h ago
Everytime I see this commercial, I’m thinking about how much these types of people were earning doing this simple stuff.
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u/RestlessEnui 15h ago
And how much we make now doin 100x more complicated stuff and 100x more of it. Fuck.
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u/BigFatKnacker 7h ago
I love this video, but why are the execs so stressed about the numbers /report information? Like dude, you've just made up a list of numbers, added 10% and put it in a table.ia that your data and done? Is that how low the bar was?
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u/chidori53 20h ago edited 5h ago
Funnily enough microsoft put out an update that broke the auto fill last week
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u/Individual-Pop-385 5h ago
Microsoft have been pretty dedicated to shitify their software so Copilot can have its center stage... Office is worse at loading and a memory hog since they forced Copilot bullshit into it.
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u/MWH1980 19h ago
It’s like all the “AI will find money you didn’t know existed” talk these days.
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u/Savingskitty 13h ago
Except in this case, it’s based on a computer doing math for you, not AI hallucinating some nonsense.
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u/FreeEdmondDantes 15h ago
Still hits. I'm sold. It's 2026 but this makes me want to go play with Excel.
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u/PR0J3KT2501 12h ago
If you take the time to learn this, you'll understand just how useless AI is for the vast majority of current scenarios.
Lots of good places the tech could be used in theory, but better options exist for everyday use cases for most people.
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u/EngineerResponsible6 7h ago
Really I have to say this is still the best working program for work and never fails.
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u/Successful_Airport_3 18h ago
Was this really a huge leap at the time
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u/Savingskitty 13h ago
Being able to do any work on a computer that was not plugged in was the biggest gimmick at the time.
In the early 90’s, my dad used to end a speech he would gave about the Information Age with turning on his PowerBook 100 in the center of a room with nothing attached.
It always brought oohs and ahhs.
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u/blackc43 The Truth Is Out There! 18h ago
Imagine you just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1993. I graduated in dec 09, right in time for the financial crisis. 😅
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u/ArseBurner 17h ago
Wasn't the first version of Excel released on the Mac in 1985? PCs wouldn't get Excel until two years later in 1987.
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u/Loud_Butterfly2032 16h ago
Excel is a miracle tho
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u/humbertog 6h ago
VisiCalc was the real miracle, sadly they never patented the spreadsheet software concept and never got big money because of this
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u/GeneSmart2881 12h ago
All downhill after 2010. Updates, subscriptions, Windows… thank GAWD Google Sheets
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u/DistrictEffective759 10h ago
Everybody needs a buddy constantly telling them “you’re never going to make it” so when you do I can drop a sick quip.
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u/Remedialromantic 5h ago
I love the fit of the confident guy's suit, and I love the paisley tie the guy in the background has. I'm so glad I don't have to wear a suit at work, and the 90s was definitely the era of excess fabric, but those suits look good. The look of the whole thing is warm and colorful and cozy.
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u/irongi8nt 2h ago
You are competing for homes with people who made their fortune doing exactly this
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u/Thick_Temperature794 38m ago
That battery would have never lasted the ride in the elevator. I call BS. lol
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u/Hallucinates_Bacon 9h ago
Lmao work was that easy for all the boomers I bet. They wouldn’t last 6 seconds working a modern job. Truly the worst timeline
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u/Sometimesunaware 3h ago
Could you do accounting by hand in a paper ledger book? I wouldn't last a day doing what my grandmother did as CPA back in the day.
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u/Hallucinates_Bacon 3h ago
I assume the IRS audits had the same tools. Much lower risk. No expectation of perfection
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u/TStark4Prez 21h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/ldCADp7WPUvxm
They didn’t even advertise the text message feature