Am 18 Aug 2004 12:21 meinte Bob Lafleur:
> Out of curiosity, does anyone have any examples of DATABASE software that
> uses the row/column metaphor before the summer of 1981?
> It would be neat to think that my idea spurred what is now commonplace in
> databases, although I have to admit that it's a pretty easy mental jump from
> a spreadsheet to a row/column display of database idea, so it's more likely
> that others came to the same conclusion, and didn't copy my software!
Well, I don't want to destroy your impression, but organizeing
data(bases) as rows and columns is as old as the punch card.
Working since some years on mainframes (which are still way
influenced by the 80 column layout of punch cards) I almost
can't imagine to look at any data that way. I remember a set
of programms we did (or better let a generator/compiler do)
four our system to view/handle records (It was the time when
we finaly got several terminals *G*). The top of screen was
reserved for navigation, while each line was dedicated to a
record - or in some cases, multiple lines (which reduced the
number of records (rows) displayed. You could move arround
and change as many fields of as many records as you wanted.
By hitting the transmit key, all changes where send back to
the host and then incooperated into the database.
IIRC, one of the system editors even had a feature where it
could handle a ISAM based file as records with defined fields
and display them (with according protected/non protected screen
sections) for editing - in contrast to our own programms, one
screen line was always one record, and you had to 'scroll'
right/left to access fields outside the displayed area.
Gruss
H.
--
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Received on Wed Aug 18 2004 - 12:27:03 BST