dBase History: What was the first version of dBase?

[erixire]

Hi,

I have a little history question for you guys,

Somebody told me at work that he worked in the 80 with the version 0.?? (zero point something) of dBase. But I didn't find anything on that version on the internet. Did the guy tried to fool me or is it true?

Thank for your answer.

 

[MiggyD]

All I can say is that I was introduced to dbase III+ in 1987. It is quite possible that dBase (no ver num.) may have been out there at that time, but I don't recall seeing it. I remember glimpsing at DB 2 (in the box) but that's it. --MiggyD

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic.

 

[cfneumann]

dBASE II

VERSION RELEASED COMMENTS
2.02 1980 First vers - 8 bit
2.02a
2.2
2.3 Jan 82
2.3a Jun 82
2.3b Aug 82 First 16 bit (quite buggy)
2.3c Internal release only
2.3d STABLE 16 bit version
2.4 Apr 83
2.41 Feb 84
2.43 Jan 85
2.43* Jun 85 *ONLY* version to utilize DOS 3.x

dBASE III
1.0 Jun 84 Copy protected
1.0e
1.1 Nov 84
1.2 Oct 85


excerpted from:

http://www.apptools.com/dbase/faq/

Christopher F. Neumann
[dBASE Charter Member]
Blue Star Visual dBASE graduate
ICCP certified TCP/IP Network Analyst

http://members.aol.com/noahcneumann

 

[RRiley]

The original dBase format came from MR. Ashton in the late seventies when Ashton wanted a way to track Football team scores and statistics. He developed basicly the whole xBase concept and later Mr Tate came along and improved the code and helped bring it to the then infant PC market. Before Ashton and Tate the PC software field was void of any database management software. Databases were then seen as strickly a Mainframe function. The earliest I have heard of the Ashton Tate dBase is 1984 but I do not know what its designation or name. I may have the names reversed but that is the general idea. Later several members of the Ashton Tate development team split off when it was bought out by Borland and created the Clipper xBase language. The Clipper Name came from a Picture that was hanging on the wall at the resturaunt they were meeting at. It is an Illness I have that cause me to remember all this worthless trivia.
RRiley

 

[erixire]

Thank you to everybody. Thanks also for the reference site

http://www.apptools.com/dbase/faq/

(QHIST.FAQ), this is what I was searching for.

 

[Guest_imported]

Yup - I believe that dBase II was the first version. If I recall correctly, dBase was jacklegged from a program informally developed at JPL - for something like keeping track of sports pool wagers.

 

[cfneumann]

RRiley,

You said, "The original dBase format came from MR. Ashton in the late seventies when Ashton wanted a way to track Football team scores and statistics."

Wasn't Ashton the name of a parrot, and not an actual person? And Wayne Ratliff created the database format?
Christopher F. Neumann
[dBASE Charter Member]
Blue Star Visual dBASE graduate
ICCP certified TCP/IP Network Analyst

http://members.aol.com/noahcneumann

 

[cfneumann]

excerpted from:

http://www.foxprohistory.org/people_began.htm

**********

Wayne Ratliff

From 1969 to 1982, Wayne Ratliff worked for the Martin Marietta Corporation in a progression of engineering and managerial positions. He was a member of the NASA Viking Flight Team when the Viking spacecraft landed on Mars in 1976, and wrote the data-management system, MFILE, for the Viking lander support software.

In 1978, he wrote a database program in assembly language, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Passadena, California. He called it Vulcan (after Mr. Spock of Star Trek), that was based on Jeb Long's JPLDIS. This program was written to help him win the football pool at the office, which he marketed by himself from 1979 to 1980. Vulcan had its ups and downs and by 1980 was in what seemed to be a permanent down state.

Ratliff was born in 1946 in Trenton, Ohio and raised in various cities and towns in Ohio and Germany. He now resides in the Los Angeles area.

In late 1980 he met George Tate, who found the product worth while and entered into a marketing agreement with Ashton-Tate and renamed the Vulcan product dBASE H. Wayne had given up trying to sell copies of it for $50 each. George told him that he thought it would sell better at $695, so they made a deal and dBASE II was the result. In mid-1983, Ashton-Tate purchased the dBASE II technology and copyright from Ratliff and he joined Ashton-Tate as vice president of new technology. Ratliff was the project manager for dBASE III, as well as designer and lead programmer.

The program was renamed dBASE II because they knew that version 1 wouldn't sell. It originally ran on a CP/M computer and then was moved over to the IBM PC.

Note there was never anyone named Ashton, it sounded better. Ashton was a maccaw (parrot) that was the unofficial mascot of Ashton-Tate.

**********
Christopher F. Neumann
[dBASE Charter Member]
Blue Star Visual dBASE graduate
ICCP certified TCP/IP Network Analyst

http://members.aol.com/noahcneumann

 

[Guest_imported]

Hi all,

Having been a former "Tater", let me take a stab at it.

There was no version 1.x of dBASE. dBASE II came in many flavors as listed above.

There was no Ashton (other than a really friendly parrot that mainly lived in the lobby.) The founders of Ashton-Tate were George Tate and Hal Lashlee. Ashton-Tate sounded better to the marketeers than Lashlee-Tate.

To correct another point above, Nantucket Corp and Clipper were founded long before Borland acquired A-T. It is true that a couple of folks from A-T went to found Nantucket (which was acquired by CA some years later).

Oops...another correction. As far as I know, other than OEM versions, all of the Ashton-Tate versions of dBASE II came in a standard binder, not a box. (Kaypro OEM'd a version that they put in a more standard box.)

If you're interested (can't imagine why) in any more Ashton-Tate trivia, I'll be glad to share.

Phil

 

[morrib1]

I started with Dbase II back in 1988 when I worked for Cray Research in Dallas onsite at Mobil and Oryx Exploration and Production morrib1

 

[Center]

I have three of the versions of CPM dbase II. The first, 2.3B, consisted of few files but worked. Then more were added and it worked better in 2.4. The final version 2.45 just had a lot of useless stuff added that got in the way, so I soon went back to 2.4.
You could write almost any program in 2.4 that you can write in Dos ver. 5, and it was easier to follow the logic and there were lots less "problems" arising. But CPM is now gone. Thank goodness dBase isn't.