Concept in Definition ABC

It is one of the mythical programs of microinformatics, and its Format from file it is still in use. With all of you, the database DBase.

MS-DOS: the golden age

Along with Lotus 1-2-3 (spreadsheet) and WordPerfect (processor of texts), DBase was the benchmark in its field, that of databases, and although the three applications they were from different companies, they formed a trinity of which few computers of the time could escape.

DBase was born as such in 1980, and in 1981 IBM requested a version for its embryonic PC. It was in this environment that this database manager gained fame.

A anecdote curious in the history of DBase is that the first version was II, and not I. This is because the production company, Ashton-Tate, did not consider that an I version would be taken seriously and in consideration by potential customers, and that a number 2 in the version would make the product look like more mature. So it was!

The Windows era: the decline

The popularization of the Windows environment, especially with version 3.0, meant, for many programs, the end of an era. Most of the solution producers that were popular in the MS-DOS environment, such as the Ability 2000 built-in packages or FrameWork III, the WordPrefect word processor, or the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet, could not read the impact of creating Microsoft, and by the time they released Windows versions, the Redmond company's Office components had eaten them up. land.

Some, like Ability 2000, simply disappeared (although an office suite called Ability can be found today, but which I have not been able to relate to the former), others such as FrameWork survive anchored in the past, and some were still acquired by other major companies (Lotus 1-2-3 by IBM. Discontinued at the beginning of the new millennium).

DBase had to make the jump to the Windows environment and, since then, it has continued to evolve until it reaches our days, although It must be said that with a lesser impact on the technology industry, although it maintains an interesting quota of loyal followers.

Your own programming language

In its MS-DOS era, DBase was powerful enough to have a series of commands with control structures that made it, de facto, a true script language. programming.

Such condition became official with the birth of Clipper, a compiler of the DBase language created by Nantucket Corporation, which later it was sold to Computer Associates, and that allowed to create, from the source code for DBase, an executable file directly by computer.

DBF files

One of the most enduring creations of DBase was its file format, known by the .DBF extension, which has transcended beyond the own borders of this database manager to become, for example, the file format with which a product of the competence as is FoxPro.

Even today, DBF files are used in many leading applications, and many applications capable of reading various file formats are also compatible with it.

Photos: iStock - vgajic / from2015