On Sunday, I'll have been using Excel for 30 years. If anyone has been using Excel for longer please reply! Well reply anyway!

[billfinn]

I started with 2020 back in the 80's, then switched to Excel when my employer switched. Dabbled with VBA as I needed it for specific projects. I would get a flow going, get a project finished and then have to leave it for a while. As a full time Purchasing person I don't have a ton of time for playing but I always automate everything I can when I land somewhere new.

 

[scott14]

If the use of Visicalc and Multiplan counts, then I was using those in grad school at UCLA in early 1980s.
Wasn't Multiplan the basis for Excel?

 

[repairdroid]

My first use of Excel was 95, as I was still too young to care about it when it was sitting on the family's Win 3.1 machine. So, almost 30 years.

 

[Johnny C]

Rick Rothstein, sorry I didn't reply. Don't ligon here much these days.

That was cool, getting MVP without using Excel.

Some of my 'masterpieces' are driven by requirement. Usually a manager who has no clue about possibilities until you show them them they ask for the world.

The most complicated I ever did, a claims model for a pension company. People would activate pensions for all sorts of reasons. There were multiple files involved in Excel, CSV, rtf, word format. There were direct debit/credit files from 2/3 working days earlier, thousands of rows, formulae that needed copying down. Then to top it all, it had to intelligently analyse errors and tell someone who may never have used the spreadsheet what to do on what accounts in the general ledger. And a dashboard sheet that changed colours in cells depending on the number of errors. Nuts. But highly satisfying

 

[yabi100]

My involvement with Excel is rather strange. I originally started volunteering answering question about the original version of Visual Basic in online in newgroups (the predecessor to forums for you young'uns out there) about 1999 or so. Microsoft was nice enough to award me MVP status in 2002 for my efforts and renewed the award year after year. When Microsoft brought out the dotNET version of Visual Basic, I HATED IT! People still asked questions about the original version of Visual Basic but the number doing so declined over time, so I figured if I wanted to continue volunteering, I would need to find a new vehicle to so with. Being a graduate math major in college and a practicing Civil Engineer in my work life, I figured Excel with its built-in VBA would be the closest fit (Visual Basic and numerical manipulations, what could be better). So I taught myself the underlying Excel object model and began answering question in both Visual Basic and Excel. After a couple of years of this, I asked Microsoft if I could have my MVP discipline switched from Visual Basic to Excel. They conducted a review and agreed my volunteer efforts in Excel met their MVP criteria and switched my discipline to Excel for which I have had my MVP status re-awarded every year since. Nineteen consecutive years in total between the two disciplines so far. Remember at the beginning when I said my involvement with Excel is rather strange? The reason is in all these years, I have never actually used Excel for any actual work (we had programs on our UNIX mini-computer for work related needs). I have only used Excel to answer other people's questions and that is it. I think that may make me the only Microsoft MVP who has no practical experience with the product for whose discipline his MVP status was awarded.

Really strange. How could it be possible to answer to Excel questions without using it? Would be very happy to hear more about your experince with Excel.

 

[robertdseals]

I can't remember the exact date either. But, I've been with Mr. Excel since 2008. I think I started Excel around the early to mid 90's. I'm now mostly doing Power BI. But, I do miss Excel.

 

[BrianM45]

Hello everyone, I just found this funny topic

Personally I have been using Excel for 35 years (1988 it does not get any younger)
it was version 1.0 on a Macintosh 128K... yes it existed

Above, we do stock management for machinery tires (new and retreaded)

And since then, Excel has never left me but has really evolved enormously.

 

[Skyybot]

I've been using VBA since I started using Excel. It's only been about 20 years for me. I love the manipulation of data.

 

[Skyybot]

In 1992 I was working for an Institutional Pharmacy as a Purchasing Manager. One day some guy from the IT department came into my office and set up a computer on my desk, and then just left. I can remember that it had Windows and Excel/Word (perhaps other apps as well). I started fooling around in Excel, but had no clue.

@igold , I love your signature. I feel it in my beer... I mean bones.

 

[robertvdb]

I started using MULTIPLAN in 1984 (!), then moved to LOTUS 1-2-3, then started with Excel sometime in the early 90's...