"Vic Smith" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:50:43 +0000, Larry wrote:


I wrote the system using Dbase III, but as CODE, not the automated Dbase
bugware it wrote itself. The code was long because they kept adding to
my tasking. The system, at 4.77 Mhz, slowed because of Dbase's
interpreter, of course.

Then, Clipper came out with this snazzy Dbase III COMPILER that
assembled the libraries and machine code of your system into a huge .exe
file that, by those standards, ran like greased lightning. My Clipper
serial number is 1700...(c; Navy refused to buy it and we got caught
trying to run around the end, so I paid $495 out of my pocket for it.

NOTE: Since the friend I mention below has a Wauquiez 38' Hood Mark
II and sometimes cruises, I deem this post not too far off topic.

There were a lot of apps designed for small business and home use that
couldn't make the transition to big time data flows.
Dbase was pretty slick as far as it went. I knew a guy still doing
Clipper work for small businesses in the mid-90's.
I wrote an employee "database" interactive app for use by one of the
consulting firms I worked for in Lotus spreadsheet macros back in the
'80's. Screen flashing all over the place since it was interpretive,
but it worked and management used it for years.
MicroFocus came out with a beautiful compiling COBOL package for the
PC in 1985, supporting an ISAM-like file structure and emulating
interactive CICS, but it cost about 4 grand for the complete package,
so it was easier to spend a few hundred for Dbase, Lotus, etc, and
hack away.
I recall MicroFocus was an English firm.
I was contracting for a very large IBM shop in Chicago when the
MicroFocus package came out. A friend - who is a sometime cruiser -
consulting at the same shop asked the manager of Tech Support to get a
copy from MicroFocus. MicroFocus had the tech support guy swear up
and down to keep it closely guarded for the evaluation.
Within an hour of it arriving about 7 of us had full copies, and we
were busy lugging InstaPrint copies of the manuals from the copy shop
across the street. So much for promises. Think it was about $50
apiece for copying the manuals.
My friend told me he did an app for an accountant friend of his, and I
used mine to write a complex mult-module/file thoroughbred
handicapping app, employing many variables that had to be keyed in
daily. It was structured, slick, and *almost* turning a profit
running the projection module when Arlington Park burned down and I
gave it up. I found futures trading a better way to gamble.
I really don't think the MicroFocus package found its niche in the
market, and believe it was later absorbed by MS. But it was certainly
better for developing small business apps than the competition.
Just too expensive, and you needed to know COBOL.
At that time everybody thought they could buy software off the shelf
to run their business. Maybe they really can now!

--Vic


I have a friend who support COBOL. Makes a nice living doing it too.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com