The first widely used database management system, DBASE was used for the microcomputers which was published by the Ashton-Tate for CP/M, and later on the Apple II, Apple Macintosh, UNIX, VMS, and IBM PC under DOS. It was used in the places where it was used as one of the best-selling software titles for a number of years. In transition DBASE was slow and was successfully used to Microsoft Windows and gradually lost market share because of the other competitors being present in Paradox, Clipper, FoxPro, and Microsoft Access.
The underlying file format of the DBASE the .dbf file, which is commonly, used in different applications especially those which require a simple format to store structured data. The DBASE with time has evolved as a modern object oriented language which runs with 32 bit Windows. This software product can be used as a wide variety of applications that include the web apps hosted on a Windows server, Windows rich client applications, and middleware applications. Through the ODBC drivers the DBASE can access most of the modern database engines. The DBASE can also feature an IDE with the help of a command window and through the navigator which is used as a time compiler, as a preprocessor, a virtual machine interpreter, a means for creating dBase application .exe's, a freely available runtime engine, and several other two-way GUI design tools which include a Report Designer, Form Designer, Label Designer, Menu Designer, Datamodule Designer, SQL Query Designer, and Table Designer.
The software product uses the Two-way Tools which also refers about the ability of switching back and providing forth between the GUI design tool and the Source Code Editor. It also includes a Source Code Editor, a Project Manager that simplifies building and deploying a dBase application, and an integrated Debugger. The DBASE also features some structured exception which is used for handling with many built in classes which are subclassed through single inheritance. The DBASE also has several visual classes, data classes, and different supporting classes. The DBASE include classes like Visual classes, Form, SubForm, Notebook, Container, Entryfield, RadioButton, SpinBox, ComboBox, ListBox, PushButton, Image, Grid, ScrollBar, ActiveX, Report, ReportViewer, Text, TextLabel and many others. Several other classes include File, String, Math, Array, Date, Exception, Object and others. The DBASE objects are dynamically categorized by adding new properties to them at runtime.
The DBASE was originated from the Wayne Ratliff in the year 1978 with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Ratliff wrote a database program in assembly language for CP/M based microcomputers to help him win the football pool at the office. According to the Ratliff the language used in the DBASE are simple, command driven and those which are intended for the interactive use on printing materials. Some evidence tells that the JPLDIS was influenced by a mainframe database product called RETRIEVE.
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