Before long you'll have a different LLM embedded in each of a series of cells, and they'll each have an opinion on what you are doing elsewhere in the sheet, and your One True Trusted Overview LLM (named OTTO) will survey them and take a vote and get back to you.
sounds like excel cell that calls html link to dynamically 'fetch' what needs to be display in cell. Link results can be the result(s) of almost anything. OTTO could well be a redirected link by server to 'sub-server' machine.
“ The emulator is built as a seperate dll which is loaded by the VBA macro. The VBA macro calls the emulator in the dll and gets the output and writes it into the cells in the spreadsheet. ”
Not really in excel. Excel is just the console. Emulator is a native DLL
I was expecting something like the cells being used as registers and the computer being implemented in the spreadsheet itself. Loading an emulator via a DLL and using the spreadsheet as a line oriented display feels like cheating.
By the same logic I can also put a crappy emulator in a dll and make notepad load it via a hook. Linux on notepad.exe. should I make that into a HN post too?
Now that I mention it, I think someone already posted that on HN...
Excel is not even Excel anymore. It’s different on Windows, Mac, web, mobile… And there’s different bugs across all them! My favorite ones have to do with regional defaults.
I was going to say that first versions were technically that, but apparently Excel was never released for DOS, Excel 2.0 was already a Windows application, and 1.0 was only available on Mac.
I don't know that I miss it, it's still around if you look for it. Even here, I find several posts a month doing something this insane and fun, let alone finding out about my friends' personal projects.
Wouldn't help with cloud of course, but there's WINE for macOS, isn't there? Or does that version of Excel not allow loading binary libraries such that you could hand it a DLL if WINE translated it?
It's focused on web tech as COM add-ins are a huge source of security and instability in Office apps. It's also more flexible for developers as they can modify the backend without having to update the client and the deployment model is significantly easier for admins.
Regarding COM, it wouldn't be that bad when using COM Servers.
However I do agree that although COM as idea is enticing, Microsoft keeps failing to deliver a productive way to use it, despite how much they keep focusing on it for Windows extensibility and API delivery since Vista.
Indeed, nowadays I feel myself a fool for having advocated for WinRT, it was one of the reasons why I returned back to Web and distributed systems, after spending four years back in Windows GUI development land.
And my advice now is for .NET devs, stay with Windows Forms or WPF, depending on which approach they favour.
For C++, I suggest the aging MFC if it has to be on the Visual Studio (still better out of the box experience than WinUI 3.0 for C++, and C++/WinRT is in maintenance anyway), but really Qt or C++ Builder are much better option.
On the other hand, if you can get it to work in the new O365 architecture using whatever JS API they're exposing now, you can call it "cloud-based" or maybe even "serverless".
Any practical use cases come to mind? Could you actually interact from Excel cells with Linux userspace, e.g. running a cell's value through a bash script as if applying a formula?
I just posted the ‘doom on a lightning adapter’ story, and saw this in submissions. I’ll have to tip my hat to the better bizarre ‘X on Y’ post. You win this time, radeeyate.
Before long you'll have a different LLM embedded in each of a series of cells, and they'll each have an opinion on what you are doing elsewhere in the sheet, and your One True Trusted Overview LLM (named OTTO) will survey them and take a vote and get back to you.
Sounds like how things are run at my place of work.
Before long, CEOs will be on Mars and their AI avatars will download daily updates into their excels.
My vote for comment thread of the year. Had coffee coming out of my nose with these two
sounds like excel cell that calls html link to dynamically 'fetch' what needs to be display in cell. Link results can be the result(s) of almost anything. OTTO could well be a redirected link by server to 'sub-server' machine.
“ The emulator is built as a seperate dll which is loaded by the VBA macro. The VBA macro calls the emulator in the dll and gets the output and writes it into the cells in the spreadsheet. ”
Not really in excel. Excel is just the console. Emulator is a native DLL
I was expecting something like the cells being used as registers and the computer being implemented in the spreadsheet itself. Loading an emulator via a DLL and using the spreadsheet as a line oriented display feels like cheating.
I still think this is pretty neat even if it's just acting like the console.
Excshell
Execell
Still funny
By the same logic I can also put a crappy emulator in a dll and make notepad load it via a hook. Linux on notepad.exe. should I make that into a HN post too?
Now that I mention it, I think someone already posted that on HN...
It's not Linux, but here's DOOM in Notepad:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/10/how-to-get-doom-runni...
Ditto with a ZMachine being called from a VIM plugin...
A native one would be emulating a DOS 8086 PC with PostScript (some people already did a ZMachine emulator).
Coulda shoulda woulda…
We've seen better on HN. Much better.
We've also seen worse. Much much worse.
Linux can run on Excel, but not Excel on Linux.
Excel is not even Excel anymore. It’s different on Windows, Mac, web, mobile… And there’s different bugs across all them! My favorite ones have to do with regional defaults.
> Excel is not even Excell anymore.
?? LAMBDA: The ultimate Excel worksheet function ( https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/lambda-the-ult... )
or "Autocorrect errors in excel still creating genomics headaches" ( https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02211-4 )
Guess time to bump things up to a higher order portable programming language. Python for excel anyone vs. go "R".
Excel, at least old versions, does run on Linux using Wine.
Then it may be possible to run Excel on Linux in Excel
> run Excel on Linux in Excel
This remind me of the top comment on Puter's post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33838179):
"I am the author of the 'app' called Puter which loads up Puter inside Puter, which then loads up the Puter app again, which ..."
I’d like to see bare-metal Excel.
I was going to say that first versions were technically that, but apparently Excel was never released for DOS, Excel 2.0 was already a Windows application, and 1.0 was only available on Mac.
It was actually a Windows application that shipped it's own runtime copy of Windows [1].
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42168173
Lotus 1-2-3 was available for DOS
[dead]
This is the insanity that I miss.
I think the guy who made Doom in only Typescript types is a testament to the fact people are still doing insane things with their computers.
For the curious, here it is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43184291
How can you miss it, when it is right here
I ended up in HW design
They didn't press F9?
I don't know that I miss it, it's still around if you look for it. Even here, I find several posts a month doing something this insane and fun, let alone finding out about my friends' personal projects.
Preference for NP over P?
So when will there nmap be backported to run in this VM?
Would be awesome to have a little VM that can scan for lateral movement possibilities, in an excel spreadsheet. Next-gen malware!
Would this same trick work on LibreOffice Calc?
Probably not. It calls out to a DLL library for most of the work. One that, unfortunately, is 32bit.
Libre Calc can load 64bit Excel plugins, but not 32bit (at the moment).
It runs on neither MacOS nor Excel cloud though, as it depends on a Windows DLL.
Wouldn't help with cloud of course, but there's WINE for macOS, isn't there? Or does that version of Excel not allow loading binary libraries such that you could hand it a DLL if WINE translated it?
Microsoft 365 is the reason why the new add-in model is focused on Web technologies, and mostly deprecated going forward for new forward.
It's focused on web tech as COM add-ins are a huge source of security and instability in Office apps. It's also more flexible for developers as they can modify the backend without having to update the client and the deployment model is significantly easier for admins.
The .NET ones are also going away.
Regarding COM, it wouldn't be that bad when using COM Servers.
However I do agree that although COM as idea is enticing, Microsoft keeps failing to deliver a productive way to use it, despite how much they keep focusing on it for Windows extensibility and API delivery since Vista.
they don't care more about API the same way the cared in Vista days https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost...
Indeed, nowadays I feel myself a fool for having advocated for WinRT, it was one of the reasons why I returned back to Web and distributed systems, after spending four years back in Windows GUI development land.
And my advice now is for .NET devs, stay with Windows Forms or WPF, depending on which approach they favour.
For C++, I suggest the aging MFC if it has to be on the Visual Studio (still better out of the box experience than WinUI 3.0 for C++, and C++/WinRT is in maintenance anyway), but really Qt or C++ Builder are much better option.
On the other hand, if you can get it to work in the new O365 architecture using whatever JS API they're exposing now, you can call it "cloud-based" or maybe even "serverless".
mini-rv32ima is incredibly compact -- I imagine a translation to VBA might not be too hard.
Any practical use cases come to mind? Could you actually interact from Excel cells with Linux userspace, e.g. running a cell's value through a bash script as if applying a formula?
Question remains: can you run Windows in LibreOffice under Linux?
I was about to say, "If it can run Doom...", but actually the deamons in Windows are worse and even more hellish than those in Doom.
Then port psdoom to it, and you can shoot them...
https://psdoom.sourceforge.net/
what's 'run'?? same box or link to cloud instance ?
I just posted the ‘doom on a lightning adapter’ story, and saw this in submissions. I’ll have to tip my hat to the better bizarre ‘X on Y’ post. You win this time, radeeyate.
I support you to one up them with `Lightning adapter on Excel`
Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to run WINE in it, and thus another Excel inside that.
Can it run Lotus 1-2-3, though? https://github.com/taviso/123elf
qemu-i386->export X with serial->SLIP->TCPIP->wine with X exported->Excel
Dog slow, but Turing complete.
I thought for a second this would be about the use of a spreadsheet as a general computation device.
Excel does support lambda style programming ( https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/lambda-the-ult... )
linux and the hit game doom are the things hackers always put on something first. any eletronic
Excel > Linux > Wine > Excel...to infinity?
Next step is to get Doom working on it :-)
RISC-V is inevitable.
Wow! We are in awe that you managed to run Linux on a database tool designed to query Bigdata tables sharded over 72 sheets.
Very impressive.
Greetings,
Deloitte.
Now lets sing a consulting song
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