[HN Gopher] Linux in Excel
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Linux in Excel
Author : radeeyate
Score : 167 points
Date : 2025-04-30 03:08 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| nailer wrote:
| 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.
| dheatov wrote:
| I support you to one up them with `Lightning adapter on Excel`
| userbinator wrote:
| Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to run WINE in it, and
| thus another Excel inside that.
| notpushkin wrote:
| Can it run Lotus 1-2-3, though?
| https://github.com/taviso/123elf
| anthk wrote:
| qemu-i386->export X with serial->SLIP->TCPIP->wine with X
| exported->Excel
|
| Dog slow, but Turing complete.
| necovek wrote:
| It runs on neither MacOS nor Excel cloud though, as it depends on
| a Windows DLL.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| 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?
| nxobject wrote:
| mini-rv32ima is incredibly compact -- I imagine a translation
| to VBA might not be too hard.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Microsoft 365 is the reason why the new add-in model is focused
| on Web technologies, and mostly deprecated going forward for
| new forward.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| 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".
| p_ing wrote:
| 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.
| pjmlp wrote:
| 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.
| Vilian wrote:
| 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...
| pjmlp wrote:
| 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.
| tinktank wrote:
| This is the insanity that I miss.
| bagatelle wrote:
| 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.
| unixhero wrote:
| How can you miss it, when it is right here
| 65 wrote:
| 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.
| redbell wrote:
| For the curious, here it is:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43184291
| sargstuff wrote:
| Preference for NP over P?
| dmitrygr wrote:
| " 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
| jayd16 wrote:
| Excshell
| ChocolateGod wrote:
| Execell
| zipping1549 wrote:
| Still funny
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| 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...
| anthk wrote:
| 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).
| padjo wrote:
| Coulda shoulda woulda...
| qwertox wrote:
| We've seen better on HN. Much better.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| We've also seen worse. Much much worse.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| It's not Linux, but here's DOOM in Notepad:
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/10/how-to-get-doom-
| runni...
| qwertox wrote:
| 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.
| yesco wrote:
| I still think this is pretty neat even if it's just acting like
| the console.
| nogajun wrote:
| Linux can run on Excel, but not Excel on Linux.
| grishka wrote:
| Excel, at least old versions, does run on Linux using Wine.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| Then it may be possible to run Excel on Linux in Excel
| xattt wrote:
| I'd like to see bare-metal Excel.
| grishka wrote:
| 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.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| Lotus 1-2-3 was available for DOS
| tech234a wrote:
| It was actually a Windows application that shipped it's
| own runtime copy of Windows [1].
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42168173
| redbell wrote:
| > 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 ..."
| smodo wrote:
| 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.
| sargstuff wrote:
| > 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".
| valorzard wrote:
| Would this same trick work on LibreOffice Calc?
| shakna wrote:
| 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).
| padde wrote:
| 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?
| aussieguy1234 wrote:
| Excel > Linux > Wine > Excel...to infinity?
| ngcazz wrote:
| I thought for a second this would be about the use of a
| spreadsheet as a general computation device.
| sargstuff wrote:
| Excel does support lambda style programming (
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/lambda-the-ult...
| )
| tolien wrote:
| Next step is to get Doom working on it :-)
| euroderf wrote:
| 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.
| sosborn wrote:
| Sounds like how things are run at my place of work.
| sargstuff wrote:
| 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.
| apexalpha wrote:
| _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._
| unixhero wrote:
| Now lets sing a consulting song
| ivolimmen wrote:
| Question remains: can you run Windows in LibreOffice under Linux?
| zombot wrote:
| 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.
| vidarh wrote:
| Then port psdoom to it, and you can shoot them...
|
| https://psdoom.sourceforge.net/
| sargstuff wrote:
| what's 'run'?? same box or link to cloud instance ?
| goodboyjojo wrote:
| linux and the hit game doom are the things hackers always put on
| something first. any eletronic
| snvzz wrote:
| RISC-V is inevitable.
| h4ck_th3_pl4n3t wrote:
| 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!
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(page generated 2025-04-30 23:01 UTC)