Lotus 1-2-3 Written by Jonathan Sachs for the Lotus Devlopment Corporation. Released on January 26, 1983. Lotus 1-2-3 proved to be a "killer app" for the IBM PC as consumers purchased IBM (or clone) PCs just to be able to use Lotus 1-2-3. The Lotus 1-2-3 product box. The Lotus 1-2-3 screen running on a DOS-based PC.