Leading Edge Microsoft Multiplan

The Leading Edge Microsoft Multiplan's manual described the Multiplan software as: "a personal productivity tool that will help you analyze data. As an aid for both business and personal needs, Multiplan is one of the most powerful modeling and planning tools ever invented." Multiplan was aimed at small businesses to aid in the creation of budgeting and sales analysis to then make strategic decisions based upon the information extrapolated. Family finance was also a need targeted by Multiplan for personal investment portfolios and family budgeting. Included here is a complete software image of the Leading Edge Branded version of Multiplan.

Installation of Leading Edge's Microsoft Multiplan was a bit of an odd affair. Installation required that the user format a new disk as a system disk then copy over the files from the retail disk to the copy. In order to do this, the syntax would look like this:

The /s switch would ensure that as the disk was formatted and a bootable sector was added. The user would then enter this:

If the user was only using one floppy drive, then the copy operation would look like this:

Once the copy operation was completed as required, the user only needed to place the copied disk into drive A then reboot, allowing the computer to boot from the floppy drive using the bootable copy disk. Once the computer was booted up from the copy disk, entering a:install would initiate the installation process where the files were decompressed and installed onto operational floppy disks or the hard drive.

The software was loaded onto one 5.25" 360KB floppy disk. The disk rested inside of Multiplan's manual binder in its own plastic three‐ring‐binder holder. The disk's sleeve was a nicely styled Leading Edge sleeve with a repeating triangle pattern in grey with the Leading Edge triple triangle in the middle and "Leading Edge" written at the bottom of the sleeve. On the back‐side of the sleeve was a caution to the user about the potential danger of magnetic fields to the disk, advice on proper handling of a floppy disk, and advice to create a back‐up copy of the disk. The disk itself came with an aluminum write‐protection sticker already applied, and the label was affixed to the upper left side of the disk. The label featured a prominent Leading Edge logo with "LEADING EDGE" lettering just below the logo in a small all‐caps font. At the top of the label was the software's serial number. Below the serial number in all‐caps was the name of the software, "MULTIPLAN", directly below was "LEPC DA", and below that is the version and copyright information.

See below for a downloadable image in the original 5.25" 360KB format.