Siheyuan starts from the stationmaster

Chapter 327 Databases

In the 80s, there were two very famous database software companies, one was called Oracle and the other was Aston-Tate.The Chinese name of the former is widely known as Oracle, and the latter Aston-Tate Company was acquired by Baolan Company in the early 90s.

Oracle Corporation focused on the minicomputer market in the early years, and its first customer was the Central Intelligence Agency of the Beautiful Country.Aston-Tate mainly focused on the microcomputer market.

In the 80s, the DBASE database software developed by Aston-Tate once dominated the microcomputer market. Even if Oracle caught up with IBM, its market share was not as high as the DBASE database. It was known as the 80s PC compatible computer. One of the top three killer software apps.

DBASE database software was sold by mail under the name of "Vulcan" in the early days.It was not until one day that it was discovered by George Tate who was looking through the mail order catalog, and it started the glorious journey of "Vulcan" in the 80s.

George Tate is one of the founders of Aston-Tate, which in 1980, bought the "Vulcan" software, and then renamed it the DBASE database for sale.

dBase's system includes the core database engine, query system, form engine, and a scripting programming language, and these components are sold together.

dBase is the first stand-alone database system widely used on personal computers. In 1980, it first appeared in CP/M software, and then it was ported to DOS of Apple II and IBM PC.During dBase III and dBase III Plus, it became the mainstream of the database market at that time, and then other companies launched products with similar functions or even enhanced products.

Bai Zirui came to Aston-Tate with his assistant and met George Tate, the founder of Aston-Tate.

Bai Zirui introduced himself: "Mr. Tate, hello! I am Zirui-Bai, Chairman of Xiangjiang Dingtian Company. You can also call me Andrew in English."

George Tate was slightly taken aback and said, "Dingtian Company? The company that sells arcade machines?"

Bai Zirui nodded and said, "That's right!"

What George Tate said made Bai Zirui a little depressed. Dingtian Company was labeled as an arcade game, and this recognition was not what Bai Zirui wanted.

George Tate asked suspiciously: "Mr. Andrew, what can I do for you?"

Bai Zirui said: "For the sake of diversification, our company has established a software company and a computer company, and we have come to acquire your company for the company's planning and development."

Ashton-Tate was founded in 1980 by George Tate and Hal Lashlee.

They bought out a license from Wayne Ratliff who worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for a program he wrote called Vulcan.

Ashton-Tate changed its name to dBase after buying out the license, and began to sell this product. In 1981, Ashton-Tate released dBase II (CP/M software), which sold mediocrely.

George Tate (George Tate) and Hal Lashley (Hal Lashlee) had a disagreement on the operation of the company. The former believed that the company should continue to develop software, and the latter believed that the company should be sold to enter other industries.

After Hal Lashlee knew that Bai Zirui had come to acquire the company, he readily transferred the company's shares to him.Faced with the betrayal of his partner, George Tate reluctantly transferred his shares to Bai Zirui.

Because he knew that this was the end of the matter, Bai Zirui bought the shares held by Hal Lashlee, and injecting capital into the company would soon dilute his shares.

Bai Zirui successfully acquired the Ashton-Tate company with USD 300 million, convened a meeting of company personnel, announced the acquisition of Ashton-Tate company, merged Ashton-Tate company into the beautiful country branch, and Meng Jianhua sent people to take over the follow-up matters deal with.

Bai Zirui was in a good mood because when he successfully completed the acquisition of Ashton-Tate, his assistant Zhou Jiayi reported bad news to him.

Zhou Jiayi hung up a phone and reported to him: "Bai Sheng, the colleague sent to DRI to negotiate just reported that the progress of their negotiations with the other party was not satisfactory, and the other party refused to provide the CP/M operating system patent license!"

Bai Zirui frowned when he heard the words. He didn't expect that something unexpected happened to what he thought was the simplest thing, but he didn't take it to heart, and ordered: "Let our colleagues from the company come back and find another way."

DRI is the abbreviation of DigitalResearch digital research company.The company is most famous for developing the earliest microcomputer operating system - CP/M operating system in the eight-bit microcomputer era. This system was known as the standard for eight-bit computer operating systems until the emergence of the dos system It just left the stage of history.

In 1982, the CP/M operating system was still the mainstream of the market.If Dingtian Company wants to release its own personal computer, it naturally needs an operating system.

Dingtian Company does not want to directly use the CP/M operating system, but wants to develop its own RoyalTek-Dos system. In order to be compatible with the CP/M operating system, it needs to use part of the code of DRI Company.

If DRI's authorization is not obtained, Dingtian's RoyalTek-Dos operating system will be sued by DRI.

The Dos operating system, also known as the disk operating system, was the most commonly used operating system in the microcomputer market until Microsoft released Windows in [-].

In 1980, Tim Patterson, a programmer at Seattle Computer Products Company, spent four months writing the 86-DOS operating system, an operating system based on the X86 architecture processor.

In July 1981, Microsoft purchased the entire copyright of the DOS operating system from a Seattle company at a price of 7 US dollars and renamed it MS-DOS.

IBM released their first IBM5150 personal computer, which used the DOS operating system. Since then, Microsoft has taken the ride of IBM compatible machines and started its way to dominate the operating system field.

The X86 architecture was developed by Intel Corporation. In order to formulate industry standards and achieve an invisible monopoly, Intel and Microsoft reached the "Winter" alliance that made people gnash their teeth but could do nothing in the early 80s.

With the development of time, the barriers of the "Winter" alliance became stronger and stronger, and almost no one behind them could break through.

During the 15 years from [-] to [-], the dos operating system was the mainstream in the market, and it was a very practical operating system.It is deeply loved by people at home and abroad, and has hundreds of millions of users.

In 1995, due to commercial interests and other reasons, Microsoft decided to abandon the DOS system in its hands and develop the Windows system.

This decision of Microsoft has caused dissatisfaction among DOS users and enthusiasts. In their view, Win95, win98 and other systems are just a large program under DOS. Without the support of DOS, it cannot run at all.

It can be seen that the function of DOS is actually very powerful. DOS software has huge development potential, and powerful DOS enhanced programs like Windows can be programmed.

Windows is a multitasking operating environment, which has much higher constraints and restrictions on programming than DOS, so many programmers continue to develop DOS software out of dissatisfaction with Windows and a deep understanding of the value and potential of DOS development.

(End of this chapter)