I assume you are writing about 1991? Quattro Pro had come out a few years prior and blew the doors off 1-2-3.
Visual BASIC 1.0 for DOS was a year away, a little sluggish and too late to change the world, but still amazing for those of us who could not afford the RAM to run Windows.
Yes - the article is about 1991. Of course there was more than one DOS spreadsheet in 1991. To give you some perspective: Excel for Mac was six years old in 1991, Informix Wingz was three years old, and Lotus Improv was just released.
They were already showing Visual Basic for Windows at trade shows and Hypercard on the mac was four years old.
Visual BASIC 1.0 for DOS was a year away, a little sluggish and too late to change the world, but still amazing for those of us who could not afford the RAM to run Windows.