SymCalc 1.0 released

[Prodatron]

The first complete release of SymCalc, a full featured spreadsheet application for SymbOS, is now ready for download:
http://www.symbos.org/appinfo.htm?00060

Link to the full documentation:
http://www.symbos.de/help/symcalc/index.html

SymCalc is open source and available on GitHub:
https://github.com/Prodatron/symapp-symcalc



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Since the last beta release, many optimizations and bug fixes have been made, such as loading documents from the command line, additional keyboard and mouse functionality, removing glitches and more. Import and export of CSV and SYLK files has also been added to allow easy file transfer with other applications inside or outside the SymbOS/8bit world.

Feature overview:
- extensive cell text formatting
- powerful formula handling for calculating cell content
- more than 50 functions including full date and time computation and financial formulas
- 18 math and boolean operators
- fast auto-recalculaton of cells
- absolute and relative single and multiple cell references
- date, time, boolean, binary and hexadecimal support
- cut, copy & paste of cell ranges with full relocation of inner and outer cell references
- table functions like insert and remove cells, rows and columns
- mouse-based cell-range-selection while editing a cell
- CSV and SYLK import and export for easy file exchange
- document meta information like author, subject, keywords
- user-defined number, units, date and time formats
- super fast hash-based cell-lookup for quick auto-recalculation



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SymCalc introduces a new technology to use multiple 64K banks in SymbOS. After loading the primary application module, one or more secondary applications are also loaded, which are then merged with the primary to save system resources. So in the end, everything is one big application. SymbOS interbank calls allow to quickly jump between different 64K banks. Most parameters are passed register-based rather than memory-based to achieve good speed.


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When I started working on SymCalc, my first goal was to get a first version ready within three months. That's how long it took to finish the first version of the legendary VisiCalc for the Apple II in 1978/1979, the father of all spreadsheet programs and the world's first killer app for personal computers. Now, these were two guys, and they may not have done it just in their spare time. But it was still incredibly impressive, since they also had to invent the whole concept of a spreadsheet. On the other hand, SymCalc is supposed to look much more modern in a Windows interface like Excel from the end 1990s and have a lot more features, so I thought it would be a "fair" comparison. Unfortunately, I had to stop the development halfway through, so instead of 3 months, it ended up taking 5.5 months.

SymCalc is aiming to be the most modern spreadsheet application for the Amstrad CPC, but version 1.0 won't be the best yet, as some things are missing:
- The total number of cells is still limited to several hundreds (at least less than 1000 in practice) as currently the same 64KB bank is used to store all cell data and the spreadsheet engine; the next version will split it into two or more 64KB banks
- Currently multiple sheets in one document are not supported; Multiplan for CP/M already offered this feature
- Other typical spreadsheet features like split screen, naming cells and cell ranges are also still missing
- Creating charts would be great too; I'm not sure if this will be an external application or a feature of SymCalc


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