L123: A Lotus 1-2-3–style terminal spreadsheet with modern Excel compatibility
A Lotus 1-2-3–style terminal spreadsheet with modern Excel compatibility.
l123 recreates the classic DOS-era spreadsheet experience — slash menus, three-line control panel, keyboard-first workflows, WYSIWYG icon panel, and all — on top of a modern formula engine with native .xlsx round-trip.
Its interaction model targets Lotus 1-2-3 Release 3.4a for DOS (1993). Its compute and I/O layers are Rust, IronCalc, and UTF-8.
✦ Status
Actively developed. Tracking the milestone plan in docs/PLAN.md:
| Milestone | Scope | State |
|---|---|---|
| M0 | Grid, pointer nav, workspace bring-up | ✅ done |
| M1 | Control panel, modes, first-char input | ✅ done |
| M2 | Engine wire-up, formulas, recalc | ✅ done |
| M3 | Menu system and MVP slash commands | ✅ done |
| M4 | .xlsx and CSV round-trip | ✅ done |
| M5 | 3D sheets, GROUP, named ranges, undo | ✅ done |
| M6 | Printing (ASCII, PDF, line-printer) and Range Search | ✅ done |
| M7 | Graphs: 7 chart types, F10 view, SVG/PNG save | ✅ done |
| M8 | R3.4 WYSIWYG icon panel with mouse support | ✅ done |
| M9 | Macros: /X, {BRANCH}, {IF}, Learn | planned |
| M10 | Polish: startup splash, context help, themes | 🚧 in progress |
API, keybindings, and file paths may still change before v1.0.
✦ Install
Requires Rust stable (pinned via rust-toolchain.toml).
git clone git@github.com:duane1024/l123.git cd l123 cargo build --release ./target/release/l123 # or: cargo run -p l123Open an existing workbook:
l123 financials.xlsxInspect or initialize configuration:
l123 config # show effective settings and their sources l123 config --init # write a sample ~/.l123/L123.CNFSee docs/CONFIG.md for the full list of keys and environment variables.
✦ Keyboard, the short version
The keyboard is the product.
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| / | Open the slash menu |
| First letter | Descend into a menu item (no Enter needed) |
| Arrows / Tab | Move pointer; during entry, commit-and-move |
| Enter | Commit cell entry |
| Esc | Back out one level (menu, prompt, POINT anchor) |
| Ctrl-Break | Abort to READY from anywhere |
| . (in POINT) | Cycle which corner of the range is anchored |
| F1 | Context help |
| F2 | Edit current cell |
| F3 | List named ranges |
| F4 | Cycle $ absoluteness in a reference |
| F5 | GOTO cell |
| F9 | Recalculate |
| F10 | Full-screen graph view |
| Alt-F4 | Undo |
| Ctrl-PgUp / Ctrl-PgDn | Previous / next sheet |
Mouse is supported for the WYSIWYG icon panel (17 icons, R3.4a layout).
Formulas use 1-2-3 syntax: @SUM(A1..A5), not =SUM(A1:A5). The @ sigil and .. separator are required. #AND#, #OR#, #NOT# are the logical operators.
First character typed in READY decides label vs. value: digits and + - . ( @ # $ start a value; anything else starts a label (with an auto-inserted ' prefix). " = right-align, ^ = center, \- fills the cell with dashes.
✦ What works today
- Three-line control panel with live mode indicator
- 13 modes (READY, LABEL, VALUE, EDIT, POINT, MENU, FILES, NAMES, HELP, ERROR, WAIT, FIND, STAT)
- Full slash-menu tree: every path in docs/MENU.md is reachable; MVP leaves execute, non-MVP leaves show "Not implemented yet" in line 3
- /Worksheet, /Range, /Copy, /Move, /File, /Quit MVP slices
- .xlsx round-trip through IronCalc; .csv import and export
- 3D workbooks: A..IV sheets, A:B3..C:D5 ranges, GROUP mode
- Named ranges, @ function MVP set (see docs/SPEC.md §15)
- Command-journal undo, toggleable via /WGD Other Undo
- Multi-file sessions (/File Open Before|After, Ctrl-End navigation)
- /Print File to ASCII, PDF, or line-printer output; headers, footers, margins, page-length, formatted / unformatted / as-displayed / cell-formulas modes; | in first column hides rows from print
- /Range Search Formulas|Labels|Both Find and Replace
- /Graph tree: Line, Bar, XY, Stack, Pie, HLCO, Mixed; Titles, Legend, Scale, Grid, Color/B&W, Data-Labels
- F10 / /Graph View full-screen rendering with Unicode bar + line output; Kitty / iTerm2 / Sixel image support via ratatui-image
- /Graph Save to SVG (and plotters PNG output for all chart types)
- R3.4a WYSIWYG icon panel: all 17 icons, mouse-wired
- Startup splash screen
- Column-width options (/WGC, range-level set/reset)
✦ Coming
- Context help (F1), CRT themes, LMBCS compose key (M10, active)
- /Data tree: Fill, Sort, Query, Table, Distribution, Regression, Parse
- Macros: /X, {BRANCH}, {IF}, {MENUBRANCH}, /Worksheet Learn
- .wk3 read-only import (values)
✦ Architecture
Rust workspace, strict layering:
l123-core ← types only, zero external deps ↑ l123-parse, l123-menu ↑ l123-engine (wraps IronCalc behind a trait) ↑ l123-cmd, l123-io, l123-graph, l123-print ↑ l123-ui (ratatui + crossterm; engine-agnostic) ↑ l123 (binary)IronCalc is behind the Engine trait so it can be swapped. 1-2-3 formula syntax (@SUM, .., #AND#) is translated to Excel syntax in l123-parse before it reaches the engine. The UI never sees IronCalc types.
✦ Authenticity contract
l123 makes two promises (docs/SPEC.md §1):
- An experienced 1-2-3 R3.4a user can drive l123 cold, without reading anything.
- Files round-trip cleanly to and from .xlsx.
SPEC §20 enumerates the behaviors — three-line control panel, menu accelerators, POINT anchor semantics, first-char rule, @ sigil, format tags, commit-on-arrow, WYSIWYG icon panel, and so on — that the project fails if it misses. Every item in the contract has at least one acceptance transcript under tests/acceptance/.
✦ Development
Strict red / green / refactor. Conventions live in CLAUDE.md.
cargo test --workspace # all tests cargo test -p l123-ui --test acceptance # keystroke transcripts cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings # lint cargo fmt --all # formatAcceptance transcripts are .tsv files describing keystrokes in and screen state out; see tests/acceptance/README.md for the directive syntax. Every UI-visible change lands with a transcript.
Canonical docs (treat as sources of truth):
- docs/SPEC.md — what l123 is
- docs/PLAN.md — milestones and risk register
- docs/MENU.md — the complete menu tree
If code and doc disagree, fix the doc first.
✦ Non-goals
- Not a DOS emulator. No INT21h, no code pages. Strings are UTF-8.
- Not a visual homage. Functional fidelity, not CRT nostalgia. (Green / amber themes are a stretch goal, not the point.)
- Not a macro player for existing .WK3 files. Read-only .WK3 import is a stretch goal; write is not planned.
- Not a reimplementation of the 1-2-3 compute core. IronCalc does that.
- Not aimed at Lotus 1-2-3 for Windows or SmartSuite. Release 3.4a for DOS only.
✦ Philosophy
Spreadsheets didn't get worse — they just got heavier.
l123 brings back the speed, clarity, and keyboard-driven precision of early spreadsheet software, without sacrificing compatibility with modern workflows.
✦ Why?
Because the / key was never the problem.
✦ License
Licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.