Software:R:Base
 | |
| Original author(s) | Wayne Erickson |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | MicroRim, Inc. |
| Initial release | 1981 |
| Stable release | 11
|
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
| Platform | PC |
| Type | Relational database |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | rbase |
R:BASE (or RBASE) is a relational database program for the PC created by Wayne Erickson in 1981. Erickson and his brother, Ron Erickson,[1] incorporated the company, MicroRim, Inc. to sell the database, MicroRIM, on November 13, 1981.
In June 1998, A. Razzak Memon, President & CEO of R:BASE Technologies, Inc. (a privately held company in Murrysville, Pennsylvania) acquired the R:BASE products from Abacus Software Group. Since 1998, R:BASE is available as R:BASE for Windows v6.1a, v7.1, v7.5, v7.6, Turbo V-8, v9.1, v9.5 (32/64) for Windows, R:Base X, and now R:Base X.5.
History
Founding
Created by Wayne Erickson in 1981,[2] the original R:Base database was written on a Heathkit CP/M computer that Erickson built at home. On November 13, 1981, Erickson and his brother, Ron Erickson, incorporated the company, MicroRim, Inc. to sell the database, MicroRIM. "RIM" was an acronym for Relational Information Management, a mainframe database developed by NASA's IPAD project team, which included Erikson at Boeing Computer Services.[3][4] The team and NASA colleagues received a NASA award for the project, which was used by NASA to track Space Shuttle heat shield tiles. The earliest version released by MicroRim was called R:Base 4000 and was released in 1983. It worked with early versions of Microsoft MS-DOS or IBM PC DOS (version 2 or above). It shipped with a binder-type manual and the program on 360KB floppy disks. As the system was DOS-based, the interface was entirely text-based with the exception of DOS line-draw characters.[5]
In the mid-1980s, when Microsoft did not have their own database, it obtained a license to resell R:BASE in Europe to have a full suite of software products.[6] By 1989 Microrim's product was the second best-selling database software in the world.[7] Computer Intelligence estimated in 1987 that Microrim had 9% of the Fortune 1000 PC database market, second to Ashton-Tate's 67%.[8] A 1990 American Institute of Certified Public Accountants member survey found that 10% of respondents used R:Base as their database, in third place behind Lotus 1-2-3 (25%) and dBASE (16%).[9]
1990s
Recent years
Some of the features included, and continue to include, a programming-free application development wizard, automatic multi-user capabilities, a full-featured 4GL programming language, form, report and label designers, and a fully ANSI SQL compliant relational language capability.[5]
Legacy R:BASE products
R:BASE 4000
The earliest version released by Microrim was called R:Base 4000 and was released in 1983. It worked with early version of Microsoft MS-DOS or IBM PC DOS (version 2 or above). It shipped with a binder-type manual and the program on 360KB floppy disks. The system being DOS-based, the interface was entirely text with the exception of DOS line-draw characters.
By default, the application would start with a menu asking which database file you wanted to open. Using a startup switch, R:Base could be run entirely from a command prompt, called the "R-prompt," in system documentation. The application command prompt was an R> although this could be modified to other characters by editing a configuration file. In an example database named Sales, to query the database, you would first open it by typing OPEN SALES at the R-prompt. Using SQL-style queries, one could pull on-screen displays of data from tables. SELECT FNAME LNAME CITY ZIPCODE FROM MAIN would display one screen of data from the fields FNAME LNAME CITY ZIPCODE from the table named MAIN. Pressing the space bar would scroll to the next 24 records. A built-in help system produced text after the R> prompt if your query was invalid or the syntax was not understood by the database engine.
A feature of the program was its ability to create applications that ran scripts generated by an internal scripting system. Scripts were stored in files with an extension .APP. The system would first ask for type of menu desired, (one option was pull-down, for example,) then asked you to fill out the pull down headings. Next, you were stepped through a list of actions for each menu choice. At the end, the procedures that had been stepped through were recorded in the database file and could be called from an automatically generated menu system. To prevent a user from tampering with the generated script, an encoded version was created. The user could password protect the encoded version for configuration management.
R:BASE 5000, R:BASE 2.0
R:Base 4000 was followed by R:Base 5000, which substantially improved features and gained wider acceptance.
R:BASE 3.x
By purchasing license packs, the database gained a multi-user capability in five-user increments. This included a sophisticated (for a DOS application in the day) record-level locking scheme. To work properly, the multi-user database had to be on a file server with all users accessing the database through a network. It was not true client-server because processing occurred in the clients. The configuration file expanded to allow language support and user-defined re-mapping of characters. For example, German characters such as the letter "ö" (o with an umlaut) could be remapped to the string oe. There were character fold tables and sort orders could be adjusted by the user. An "unlimited number of licenses" runtime version was offered, allowing developers to sell applications and include the run-time R:Base engine.
R> LIST CALIFCY
# Name Type Index Expression
1 STATE TEXT 2
2 FEATURE TEXT 85
3 FEATURET TEXT 9
4 COUNTY1 TEXT 15
5 FIPSST TEXT 2
6 FIPSCO TEXT 3
7 LATITUDE TEXT 7
8 LONGITUD TEXT 8
9 LAT_DEC TEXT 8
10 LON_DEC TEXT 10
11 SOURCELA TEXT 7
12 SOURCELO TEXT 8
13 SOUR_lat TEXT 8
14 SOUR_lon TEXT 10
15 ELEVATIO TEXT 5
16 FIELD16 TEXT 8
17 MAPNAME TEXT 27
18 LAT1 DOUBLE
19 LON DOUBLE
20 ITEM_NO DOUBLE
Current number of rows: 7070
R:BASE 4.x
First R:BASE for Windows
Current generation R:BASE products
- R:BASE 7.6 for Windows
- R:BASE 7.6 for DOS
- R:BASE Turbo V-8 for Windows
- R:BASE 9.1 for DOS
- R:BASE eXtreme 9.1 (32) for Windows
- R:BASE eXtreme 9.1 (64) for Windows
- R:BASE eXtreme 9.5 (32) for Windows
- R:BASE eXtreme 9.5 (64) for Windows
- R:BASE X (32)
- R:BASE X Enterprise (64)
- R:BASE X.5 (32)
- R:BASE X.5 Enterprise (64)
- R:BASE 11 [10]
References
- ↑ "Board of Trustees: Ron Erickson". Central Washington University. http://www.cwu.edu/trustees/ron-erickson. Retrieved 2013-11-15.
- ↑ Angus, Jeff (1987-02-23) (in en). Microrim's Rbase Tools Are Key to Its Success. InfoWorld Media Group, Inc.. https://books.google.com/books?id=1DAEAAAAMBAJ&dq=wayne+erickson+1981+r+base&pg=PA27.
- ↑ Relational DBMS in FORTRAN 77
- ↑ "Aminet - biz/dbase/Rim.lha". https://aminet.net/package/biz/dbase/Rim.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "R:BASE - 38 years of Continuous Innovation!". https://www.rbase.com/history.php.
- ↑ "This Rbase System for MS-DOS in German - BetaArchive". https://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38722.
- ↑ Andrews, Paul (2015-08-17). "Inside Microsoft – A 'Velvet Sweatshop' or a High-Tech Heaven?" (in en-US). Seattle Times. 1989-04-23. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/archive-inside-microsoft-a-velvet-sweatshop-or-a-high-tech-heaven/.
- ↑ Gates, Bill; Manzi, Jim; Esber, Ed (1987-11-02). "The great software debate". Computerworld (Interview). Vol. XXI, no. 44. Interviewed by Paul Gillin. p. SR7. Retrieved 2025-06-08.
- ↑ 1990 AICPA survey of computer usage (Report). 1990. 561. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1563&context=aicpa_guides. Retrieved 2025-04-30.
- ↑ "R:BASE". https://www.rbase.com/rbg11/.
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