Xess is a UNIX / X-windows based spreadsheet supplied by Applied Information Systems, Inc. (AIS) oriented towards scientific and engineering applications, but also suitable for general-purpose spreadsheets. It provides numerous input/output options, and supports standard spreadsheets formats from other programs such as Excel and Lotus. It includes a C-based application programming interface (API) that allows programmers to write customized interfaces to the spreadsheet.
Xess 6.0 is the current default for all platforms (i.e., this is the version obtained by typing: add xess; xess). Version 5.0 is also available and may be run by typing:
athena% add xess
athena% xess -ver 5.0
General usage information can be found in the What Runs Where listing and in the xess locker, in files /afs/athena/software/xess/README.athena and /afs/athena/software/README.config
The Xess 5.0 manual and Xess 5.0 xsBasic manual are available in PostScript format (for Athena users only). A copy of the Xess 5 online help and Xess 6 online help in html are also available for web viewing.
Xess is the officially supported spreadsheet for the MIT Athena Computing Environment. By "officially supported" we mean:
Help with Xess
If you are affiliated with MIT,
contact Athena Consulting (on Athena,
type "olc"). Otherwise, see the other resources above or contact the
vendor for help.
Sending bug reports
Athena users should report problems
via the "sendbug" command.
Software at MIT
Questions or suggestions about
availability of software on Athena should be sent to
3partysw@mit.edu.
Comments on this page
Questions or comments about this
web page should be sent to acs-web@mit.edu.