Does the name Visicalc sound familiar to any of you? It was the original spreadsheet program for personal computers that first appeared back in the early 1980s. Accountants, who were the prime users of paper and pencil spreadsheets back then, hailed the program as a near miracle. As the pace of development of personal computers accelerated, more and more spreadsheet programs appeared. Number-crunchers like engineers and scientists began to see the power and versatility of spreadsheet software.
Today, just about every personal computer that ships with bundled software includes a spreadsheet program. Even the simpler ones are more than capable of serving as a design tool for many routine tasks involved in hydronic system design.