DBASE on the Kaypro II
stonetools.ghost.io
stonetools.ghost.io
This is hilarious to me, because times have certainly changed.
When we first started shipping Windows software the big complaint from users was the use of Tab to switch fields, while Return triggered the default button (usually Save or Close).
The change, for users used to DOS was painful - not least when capturing numbers as the numeric key pad has Enter not Tab.
Software developers either stood firm, convincing customers to learn Tab, or caved and aliased the Enter key to the Tab key. Even today I still find that option here and there in Software that's been around a while...
DOS chose Enter though because in those days mist data capture was numbers. Lots and lots of numbers. Data capturers could track the left hand down the column (so keeping place on yhe paper) any type with the right. Enter is right there in the keypad so only one hand needed.
Switching to Tab means 2 hands needed on the keyboard, so difficult to keep track on the paper.
Typically also, on DOS screens there was very little multi-line entry. Addresses were multiple entry fields, and so on. Tab was pretty much not used (outside of word processing).
If I went back now, to design the standard keyboard, I'd add dedicated "Next" and "Previous" buttons on the numeric keypad. No need for Enter there.
But that's design with a lot of hindsight...
And “Enter” isn’t “Return”.
I don’t know how the PC and PC software did it, but the Mac, when it got a numeric keypad, discriminated between return (on the alphanumeric keyboard) and enter (on the keypad), and software did discriminate between the two.
The only time I've seen them mapped differently is games.
We kept running into all kinds of weird issues when importing data back into the legacy system. Of course, after we started looking into it, I narrowed all the issues down to the same two users.
I don't remember exactly what it was, but users would hit a certain key on the keyboard at the end of every field, before they used the mouse to click on the next field and enter more data. This resulted in an undesired character at the end of every field!
I realized exactly what was going on as I watched a person fill out the form and submit it.
"Why are you doing that!"
"Doing what?"
"Hitting the space bar (or whatever key it was) every time you fill out a field!"
shrug
This software is my retro computing white whale, I've never been able to find it. But I think it's evolved into a product called OpenInsight, by Revelation Software, which still exists.
The change to VB/Access and SQL later on took some mind shifting as the concepts on how to design a database are quite different.
Additionally it is quite remarkable the productivity that xBase offered, for a constrained environment like MS-DOS, in an automatic memory managed language, with AOT compilation (when using Clipper, FoxPro and co).
As you say the productivity it (xBASE/FoxPro/Clipper) offered was remarkable. One of the tools that I really wish I had was a FoxPro/Clipper compiler that took a subset of the language (general purpose stuff and screen functionality) and compiled it to either C or Go with ncurses. Who knows, I might have AI help me build one.
Brazil had a vibrant and omnipresent Clipper developer ecosystem until VB and Access ate their lunch. This also made a lot of businesses adopt windows.
Yeah, is still unmatched. My dream is to revive the spirit of it (https://tablam.org) and looking for partners or funding!
That's wrong. I haven't tried it with the Kaypro emulation, but here's a video showing the mc68000 computer printing to an emulated Epson ActionPrinter 2000: https://streamable.com/rvenyx
It's also possible to print to a text file.
I had memories of Foxpro and Clipper on my mind, when I found myself in this rabbit hole.
dbase IV was popular when I was in college. I never used it. But instead cut my teeth on Paradox and later SolidDB which supported SQL 92. I was blown away from SolidDB in the early 90s. So much power in such a tiny database product at that time.
It’s kind of cool to see people putting in the effort to learn 30 commands and becoming masters of their own destiny. I guess it’s the same sense of mastery that Excel users have today.
What’s the dBase II/III equivalent today?
Hopefully someone more learned than myself about modern database programming will chime in. I'm not sure what current system offers both the database and development features in such a seamless package. That said, on the Mastodon post for this article, I was told, "Learning dBASE isn't for naught" and was directed to https://xharbour.org/ as a modern dBASE/Clipper implementation. (haven't had a chance to try it yet, personally)
Salesforce, firebase or Supabase etc., but, all are SAAS platforms. Not sure if there is any other platform where you can do database and applications that you can host yourself.
Were those so awful? I remember rather enjoying them when I read them many years ago - though the last book got pretty weird, as 4th-book-in-trilogy installments tend to do.
The main character (Nicole?) was the worst kind of Mary-Sue, with the rest of the characters increasingly taking on the mien of cardboard cutouts flitting around her. Sex became a major theme in a way that, again, might work well with another co-author but clashes with Clarke's palette.
And IIRC, the exploration and revelation of the Ramans loses essentially all of the hard science that grounds Clarke's work generally and Rendezvous in particular and becomes woo-woo spirituality.