
XBase - jasim
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ExBase
======
AlbertoGP
All right, this is all I needed to know cited from that page:

"XBase [...] is a general term for languages and tools derived from the Ashton
Tate dBASE product, popular in the 1980s and early 1990s. Clones include
FoxPro, Quicksilver, dbXL, and a compiled dialect called Clipper (which
spawned XbasePlusPlus, FlagShip, and Harbour)."

"XBase originated as a table-oriented non-SQL language and tool vaguely
influenced by relational theory and (mainly) cursor-oriented table navigation
techniques from the 1960s. It was one of the first products that easily
allowed small businesses access to database concepts such as ad-hoc queries,
indexing, and data-driven CrudScreen RAD when microcomputers were just coming
of age. [...]"

"It allegedly has its roots in a legacy database product called RETRIEVE. The
Pasadena Jet Propulsion Laboratory, famous for planetary probes, didn't want
to pay licensing fees for RETRIEVE and so set out to create something similar.
In a round-about way, it eventually wound up a commercial product for CPM
microcomputers, and grew quite popular in the DOS world."

There is an open source implementation at [http://harbour-
project.org/](http://harbour-project.org/) (->
[http://harbour.github.io/](http://harbour.github.io/) ) whose latest version
3.0.0 was released on 2011-07-17, but the Github repo (imported from
SourceForge) shows recent activity:
[https://github.com/harbour/core](https://github.com/harbour/core)

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coreload
That poor little c2.com server. The gerbils will be turning their wheels all
day.

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protomyth
First job out of college had me working with a government built database using
foxbase (not fox pro). It was a bit of an eye opener compared to the database
course in college. Since we really didn't have much of a budget, any reporting
I wanted to do had to use my Turbo C compiler and Postscript. It was
educational.

~~~
jhbadger
I worked my way through undergrad (when that was still possible in the US in
the late 1980s-early 1990s) working at the university library part time
maintaining their databases and query systems -- which were initially in dBase
III and later migrated to Foxbase, and around when I left, to the DOS-based
early versions of FoxPro. I haven't thought about dBASE, Foxbase, or any sort
of XBASE for over twenty years. Quite nostalgic.

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nobleach
Some of my first programming experience was porting a CA Clipper application
to Delphi/InterBase/FireBirdSQL... then we moved the database to MySQL (using
the Gemini table type) Then we figured why not write a Perl/DBI CGI web app...
then PHP. That started my love affair with the web.

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groovy2shoes
Google's cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r4cj06t...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r4cj06tIA_YJ:c2.com/cgi/wiki%3FExBase+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

