Finding Elapsed time

Finding the time between the start and end of an event is a piece of cake in Lotus 1-2-3. Just construct the following spreadsheet and push a couple of buttons to get answers to 1-second accuracy.

Starting with a blank spreadsheet, put the following macro in cell C1. '@NOW~/RV~~ and then use the command [Menu]Range Name Create \T and indicate cell C1 as the range to be named.

In cell A2 type 'Start

in cell A3 type 'End

in cell A4 type 'Diff

Use the command [Menu] Range Name Label Right A2..A4 to give names to the cells B2, B3 and B4. In cell B4 enter the formula +END-START. Format the cells B2..B4 with the command [Menu]Range Format Date Time 3 and press Enter.

To use the spreadsheet put the cell cursor in cell B2 and press ALT+T to register the starting time of an event. Later, put the cursor in cell B3 and press ALT+T to register the end time of the event. The difference will appear in cell B4. Note that the macro uses the trick of "Range Value Copying" to lock in the value of the @NOW function. Without this, the values in cells B2 and B3 would change whenever any other cell was modified.