@copperbadge this seems up your alley
If the system ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess! Accounting may not be the oldest profession, but someone had to keep the books for them.
I mean, in theory I know that Excel is based on the structure of earlier accounting technology that's been around for hundreds of years -- what do we think we did to track commerce before computers? -- but it still kind of blows my mind to, for example, look at my ancestor's journal from a whaling voyage in 1770 and see spreadsheets in the back.
this kind of undersells it: cuneiform was invented for spreadsheets. writing was a STEM dork counting and calculating system long before it was used to communicate stories or even direct human speech.












