Re: the original developer of most of it for Excel 2000
Regretfully, if someone sends you a spreadsheet with more than 256 columns then opening it in Office 97 (and possibly 2000, if I recall correctly) will just silently truncate each line at 256 columns leaving you none the wiser that there was ever any more data available.
I gave up on Office after 2000 and now use WPS or Libre as they are both less hassle.