Visicorp

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Visicorp ( spelling VisiCorp ) was a software manufacturer that brought the world's first spreadsheet program Visicalc onto the market.

Visicorp was founded in 1976 by Dan Fylstra under the name Personal Software . Fylstra ran the company while studying at Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts . In 1978 the company took over the distribution of Microchess , a chess program that Micro-Ware Ltd. has been using since December 1976. for various microcomputers and involved its developer, Peter Jennings, in the company. It funded the development of the first microcomputer spreadsheet program, programmed by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston under the company name (company) Software Arts . Visicorp obtained the distribution rights for this product, created the manual and launched it in October 1979. The company's headquarters were relocated from Massachusetts to California's Silicon Valley in early 1979 .

In 1982, due to the success of Visicalc, the company's name was changed to Visicorp. Another Visicorp product, Visi on , was released in December 1983. Vision was one of the first GUIs for personal computers. Management errors and a costly lawsuit with Software Arts resulted in increasing losses from late 1983 onwards, which ultimately led to its collapse in 1984 and the subsequent takeover of the company by Control Data Corporation .

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