Clipper and dBase III?
Steve Cook
anyone clarify this? I know what Clipper is, but how does that relate to
dBase III (of which I am not familiar).
TIA.
Phil Barnett
DbaseIII was in interpreter. As such, it was relatively slow.
Clipper originated to compile DbaseIII code. As such, it ran the same
code much faster.
Then, Clipper broke away regarding adding new features and ideas.
Clipper is still a superset of DbaseIII, in that most dBaseIII
commands and functions are still supported.
--
Phil Barnett mailto:phi...@iag.net <-- Remove the first .
Oasis WWW http://www.iag.net/~philb/
FTP Site ftp://ftp.iag.net/pub/clipper
Clipper FAQ http://www.iag.net/~philb/clipper.html
Harbour Project http://www.Harbour-Project.org
The game will never end. For the game is
life itself, and life is Who We Are.
Andi Jahja
<stc...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>The Clipper FAQ says that CA-Clipper is a 'superset' of dBase III. Can
>anyone clarify this? I know what Clipper is, but how does that relate to
>dBase III (of which I am not familiar).
Clipper would never exist if there was not dBase III around. dBIII was
once the most used package for dealing with PC-based data base files
in the 80's. Clipper was born as a "dBase III Compiler" making the
routines created by dBIII to be an executable/stand alone application
independent of dBIII. The first version - Winter 84, runs 20 times
faster than dBIII. dBIII was an interpreter. People had to have dBIII
installed for running the routines.
As times went by, Clipper advanced incredibly fast so at one time
Clipper was considered as another programming language rather than a
dBIII compiler. But, compatibilities were kept in such a way so that
it still has the ability to compile dBIII's prg.
Perhaps this may help explain why Clipper is called a 'superset' of
dBIII.
--
Andi Jahja <see headers for my e-address>
M MURCH
you had to buy a copy of dBase for every customer that did not already own
it. If the client has 10 PCs to run your app, you will have to spend about
$4,000 on dbase. Clipper compiled code could be distributed free.
Mike M
Mr Ed
was pretty handy; I'd write an app and test with dBase, then when I got it
going the way I wanted, I'd compile and distribute the finished EXE. I
recently compiled an old dBaseIII app with Clipper 5.2. It took some
modifications, but not a lot.
Clipper is way, way past that now though. You've got stuff like lexical
scoping of variables, code-blocks, multi-dimensional arrays, local
GetLists, etc. that makes the whole dBase thing obsolete.
HTH . . . Ed
Steve Cook <stc...@earthlink.net> wrote in article
<7hftc2$kos$1...@oak.prod.itd.earthlink.net>...
> The Clipper FAQ says that CA-Clipper is a 'superset' of dBase III. Can
> anyone clarify this? I know what Clipper is, but how does that relate to
> dBase III (of which I am not familiar).
>
> TIA.
>
>
>
>
Nick Ramsay
wrote:
This isn't quite true - Ashton-Tate also offered a run-time only
product which was, IIRC, around $120. It would only run your
"tokenised" code, it didn't give users access to the command
interpreter.
--
Nick Ramsay
WitzEnd Computer Services
mailto: ni...@witzend-uk.com
M MURCH
>This isn't quite true - Ashton-Tate also offered a run-time only
>product which was, IIRC, around $120. It would only run your
>"tokenised" code, it didn't give users access to the command
>interpreter.
>--
I remember the "run-times' for dBase, but I thought we had been compiling
code with Clipper for years (since 84) before runtimes were available.
Wasn't the runtimes for dBase in response to Clipper?
Mike
WEWain
late 70's from a firm in Boston, named "Call-A-Computer", and was very
similar to dBASE.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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M MURCH <MMU...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:7hs14r$1cje$1...@newssvr01-int.news.prodigy.com...
Nick,
I did not know dBase II had run-times! That is interesting.
Last night, I looked at Ed Tiley's book, Using Clipper. He tracked the
beginning of Nantucket to Barry ReBell and Brian Russell having known each
other from Aston-Tate. Quote from the book "Russell was struck by the idea
of creating a compiler that would eliminate the need for every user of an
application to have a copy of dBase III Plus."
Every time a new Intel processor is announce, the magazines print a complete
timeline of previous processors. I would love to try to set up a timeline
these early Xbase products back to Vulcan.
I have been writing code since 1977, but I have a difficult time remembering
the details. Most of my early software and receipts are out in the garage
and some day I may try to make a good list.
BTW, did you run your program on the Microsoft CPM board for Apple II?
Mike
Nick Ramsay
wrote:
>
Nope - I had a vertical market app written in dBASEII under CP/M - now
there's a blast from the past! I used the runtime even back then. In
fact, when I moved it to DOS, I had to hand-patch A-T's DOS runtime as
they had used a cross-compiler on the CP/M code to produce the DOS
version & it had screwed up the DOS call to open a file. This was
around '82-'84.
The abortive A-T compiler project was in response to the Clipper /
Quicksilver compilers - anyone remember Quicksilver?
M MURCH
Nick Ramsay
wrote:
>Nick,
>
>I did not know dBase II had run-times! That is interesting.
>
>Last night, I looked at Ed Tiley's book, Using Clipper. He tracked the
>beginning of Nantucket to Barry ReBell and Brian Russell having known each
>other from Aston-Tate. Quote from the book "Russell was struck by the idea
>of creating a compiler that would eliminate the need for every user of an
>application to have a copy of dBase III Plus."
>
Yes that's pretty much how I remember the story too. The great
punchline is that Clipper was Brian & Rich's _first_ major C project!
Not to mention their first compiler...
>Every time a new Intel processor is announce, the magazines print a complete
>timeline of previous processors. I would love to try to set up a timeline
>these early Xbase products back to Vulcan.
>
You need to read the interview with Wayne Ratliff in "Programmers at
Work" (Microsoft Press, 1986) - it's been out of print for years, but
it's a classic of its kind. I'll try to distill a timeline from it if
you want.
>I have been writing code since 1977, but I have a difficult time remembering
>the details. Most of my early software and receipts are out in the garage
>and some day I may try to make a good list.
>
Oh yeah - I'm the same. My garage is my "long term archive", but I
don't have a directory listing for it :-)
>BTW, did you run your program on the Microsoft CPM board for Apple II?
>
No, I never got involved in Apples as they didn't have much
penetration into the business market in the UK. These were
SuperBrains & later on Kaypro "lugables" with a whole 10Mb HDD. Around
$4,000 a pop, IIRC.
Dave Pearson
> >Every time a new Intel processor is announce, the magazines print a
> >complete timeline of previous processors. I would love to try to set up a
> >timeline these early Xbase products back to Vulcan.
>
> You need to read the interview with Wayne Ratliff in "Programmers at Work"
> (Microsoft Press, 1986) - it's been out of print for years, but it's a
> classic of its kind. I'll try to distill a timeline from it if you want.
John Skelton was kind enough to point out to me the other day that
_Programmers At Work_ is now available on CDROM from Dr. Dobb's. Anyone
after it should see <URL:http://www.ddj.com/cdrom/> for more details.
--
Take a look in Hagbard's World: | w3ng - The WWW Norton Guide reader.
http://www.acemake.com/hagbard/ | eg - Norton Guide reader for Linux.
http://www.hagbard.demon.co.uk/ | weg - Norton Guide reader for Windows.
Free software, including........| dgscan - DGROUP scanner for Clipper.
M MURCH
>You need to read the interview with Wayne Ratliff in "Programmers at
>Work" (Microsoft Press, 1986) - it's been out of print for years, but
>it's a classic of its kind. I'll try to distill a timeline from it if
>you want.
>
I have "Programmers at Work". I pick it up and reread chapters often. You
should look again at Bill Gates' chapter. He was pushing CD ROMS as being
the answer to everything. It seems he is always selling. He is a true
genious, but has not applied himself to new innovations lately.
Wayne Ratliff's chapter stops too early for a complete timeline. Many new
products were being released when Programmers at Work was published. I will
see if I can get an early Xbase timeline from it. I don't think it had
anything about your dBase II run-times.
>
>No, I never got involved in Apples as they didn't have much
>penetration into the business market in the UK. These were
>SuperBrains & later on Kaypro "lugables" with a whole 10Mb HDD. Around
>$4,000 a pop, IIRC.
Personally, I preferred the Northstar computers!
Mike
Victor Szel
I've found this on the net:
http://www.ece.utexas.edu/~ranga/ads/vulcan.html
This is an ad from 1980 for Vulcan.
Victor Szel