Column limitation - why?

[Guest]

Why do spreadsheets like Excel and Lotus 123 (and even desktop database software like Access) have a limitation of 256 columns (or thereabouts)? I am interested in the reasoning for the limitation not whether I need more than 256 as other posts seem to be hung up on. Also others have posted that this is arbitrary limit which seems odd when other packages like Quattro Pro have recognized the need for more than 256. The later versions of Quattro Pro do allow for more than 256 columns (18,278) but from what I can determine this is a workaround by swapping 256 columns in and out of memory which isn’t really going beyond the 256 limit. Quattro Pro does allow a maximum of 1,000,000 rows too??

Is this an addressing issue? If so, I thought Operating Systems like Win 2000 and XP were 32 bit which is 2**32=4,294,967,296. My experience is that these limitations are prevalent with any Windows version.

Also, why are the number of columns limited to 256 yet the number of rows can go to 65,536 in Excel and Lotus 123?

 

[J.E. McGimpsey]

Remember that XL was developed (for Macintosh) long before Windows
existed. The initial number of columns was undoubtedly an addressing
issue. The issue now is more compatibility and breaking the
installed code base.

MS spent a huge amount of money going from 2^14 rows in XL95 to 2^16
rows in XL97, and in the process, made XL95 and XL97 files
incompatible. increasing the number of columns would presumably
require a similar investment, probably more if the file structure
compatibility were somehow to be solved.

One can only speculate, but MS isn't known for leaving cash on the
table - if the number of increased sales of XL justified the
investment, we would have had more than 256 columns by now. I
suspect, however, that the number of increased sales would be pretty
miniscule by MS standards - if all the "more columns" articles in a
Google search of Excel newsgroup archives since they began in the
mid-90's were from different customers, the 25,400 hits, if they
were each translated into *increased* sales (which they wouldn't be
- you don't see an exodus to Quattro Pro), the revenue would barely
get a project like that started.

 

[Guest]

Thanks JE, that's the first sensible answer I've seen on this issue. So, basically what you are saying is that yes more columns could be added in a revision to Excel but it is a marketing issue in that why spend the development costs for a low return. I hadn't thought of the file format incompatibly but yes that would require more programming. In terms of basic structure things haven't advanced much since SuperCalc!!! Maybe one day MS will do a major revision and add more columns and fix other irritants like increase the number of sort fields. One can always dream.

 

[J.E. McGimpsey]

Just remember that my post was entirely my speculation - it's not
based on any special insight or inside information.