
#Database management system pdf software#
This category included IBM’s Fargo and Report.The software and hardware applications are clearly on the way of becoming an integral tool of business, communication and popular culture in many parts of the world. These report writers pioneered the definition-based applications approach versus a procedural programming approach. These DBMS products were preceded by a number of report writers, which used stored information to produce reports in the layout and form desired by the user. This issue only minimally refers to other related areas that some feel should be considered a vital part of the DBMS story.

These database and data communications systems became the foundation for building many (some say most) of the core applications in every industry and government agency, and they became the engines that drove the sale of mainframe computers during the 1970s and afterward. In some sense, these DBMSs, with their accompanying data communications (or online transaction processing) systems, enabled users in all industries to construct both online and batch applications in a far more timely and cost effective manner. Many historians and industry analysts believe that these products and these companies formed the foundation on which the mainframe software products industry was built. 1 IBM itself was a significant player in this marketplace with its IMS product, but all the other products were produced and marketed by independent software companies. These eight recollections cover the principal DBMS software products for IBM mainframe computers.
#Database management system pdf series#
This issue tells the rest of the story through a series of pioneer recollections, principally from people who founded the major DBMS companies or were heavily involved in the growth and development of these products and companies. Tim Bergin and Thomas Haigh then examine the database management products that dominated the IBM environment and other major computer platforms in the 1970s and 1980s. Thomas Haigh begins this issue by describing the world prior to DBMSs and some of the early DBMS products. What was so important about these DBMS products? Why did they have such a major impact on the growth of the software products industry and, more importantly, on the way that almost all major commercial applications were built from the 1970s on? It is a complex story, part of which is told in this issue. The second issue will be devoted to the relational DBMS products, which were developed during the 1970s and came to prominence (and some say dominance) during the 1980s and 1990s.

This issue (the first) is focused on the products, companies, and people who designed, programmed, and sold mainframe DBMS software products beginning in the 1960s and 1970s.

These two issues will be the fourth and fifth sponsored by the Software Industry Special Interest Group of the Computer History Museum (formerly the Software History Center). Recognizing the major role played by these products, the Annals is publishing two special issues on the subject. Database management systems (DBMSs) have played an outsized role in the history of software development and in the creation and growth of the software products industry.
