> To take it to an obvious extreme: what is the Unix version of Excel? `set_cell A4 'hello' && recalculate_formula B5 && cat A1:D2 | pi_chart`??

That's a nice question. It's not that obvious extreme for me though.

You could use sc and GNU plot (I know... GNU's not Unix). Simple example:

- first you configure your plot

$ echo "set terminal png\nset output 'plot.png'\nplot '/dev/stdin' with lines" > plotcfg.plg

- then you create a spreadsheet and pass it to gnuplot. It's easier to edit the spreadsheet with sc's TUI

$ echo 'let A0 = 1\nlet B0 = 8\nlet A1 = 2\nlet B1 = 16\nlet A2 = 3\nlet B2 = 32\n' | sc -W '%' - | gnuplot plotcfg.plg