homework college essays expository essays feedback about a book

Memeber Login Password

Ondix Content Search

Title or Description

Subject

School

Teacher

Display Results Per Page

10 20 50 100

Brief History Of Databases

Brief History Of Databases

In the 1960's, the use of main frame computers became widespread in many
companies. To access vast amounts of stored information, these companies
started to use computer programs like COBOL and FORTRAN. Data accessibility and
data sharing soon became an important feature because of the large amount of
information recquired by different departments within certain companies. With
this system, each application owns its own data files. The problems thus
associated with this type of file processing was uncontrolled redundancy,
inconsistent data, inflexibility, poor enforcement of standards, and low
programmer maintenance.
In 1964, MIS (Management Information Systems) was introduced. This
would prove to be very influential towards future designs of computer systems
and the methods they will use in manipulating data.
In 1966, Philip Kotler had the first description of how managers could
benefit from the powerful capabilities of the electronic computer as a
management tool.
In 1969, Berson developed a marketing information system for marketing
research. In 1970, the Montgomery urban model was developed stressing the
quantitative aspect of management by highlighting a data bank, a model bank, and
a measurement statistics bank. All of these factors will be influential on
future models of storing data in a pool. According to Martine, in 1981, a
database is a shared collection of interrelated data designed to meet the needs
of multiple types of end users. The data is stored in one location so that they
are independent of the programs that use them, keeping in mind data integrity
with respect to the approaches to adding new data, modifying data, and
retrieving existing data. A database is shared and perceived differently by
multiple users. This leads to the arrival of Database Management Systems.
These systems first appeared around the 1970=s as solutions to problems
associated with mainframe computers. Originally, pre-database programs accessed
their own data files. Consequently, similar data had to be stored in other
areas where that certain piece of information was relevant. Simple things like
addresses were stored in customer information files, accounts receivable records,
and so on. This created redundancy and inefficiency. Updating files, like
storing files, was also a problem. When a customer=s address changed, all the
fields where that customer=s address was stored had to be changed. If a field
happened to be missed, then an inconsistency was created. When requests to
develop new ways to manipulate and summarize data arose, it only added to the
problem of having files attached to specific applications. New system design
had to be done, including new programs and new data file storage methods. The
close connection between data files and programs sent the costs for storage and
maintenance soaring. This combined with an inflexible method of the kinds of
data that could be extracted, arose the need to design an effective and
efficient system.
Here is where Database Management Systems helped restore order to a
system of inefficiency. Instead of having separate files for each program, one
single collection of information was kept, a database. Now, many programs,
known as a database manager, could access one database with the confidence of
knowing that it is accessing up to date and exclusive information.

Some early DBMS=s consisted of:
Condor 3 dBaseIII Knowledgeman Omnifile Please Power-Base R-Base 4000 Condor 3,
dBaseIII, and Omnifile will be examined more closely.

Condor 3
Is a relational database management system that evolved in the
microcomputer environment since 1977. Condor provides multi-file, menu-driven
relational capabilities and a flexible command language. By using a word
processor, due to the absence of a text editor, frequently used commands can
automated.
Condor 3 is an application development tool for multiple-file databases.
Although it lacks some of the capabilities like procedure repetition, it makes
up for it with its ease to use and quick decent speed.
Condor 3 utilizes the advantages of menu-driven design. Its portability
enables it to import and export data files in five different ASCII formats.
Defining file structures is a relatively straightforward method by typing the
field names and their length, the main part of designing the structure is about
complete. Condor uses six data types:

alphabetic alphanumeric C. numeric C. decimal numeric C. Julian
date C. dollar
Once the fields have been designed, data entry is as easy as pressing
enter and inputting the respective values to the appropriate fields and like the
newer databases, Condor too can use the Update, Delete, Insert, and Backspace
commands. Accessing data is done by creating an index. The index can be used
to perform sorts and arithmetic.

dBaseIII
DbaseIII is a relational DBMS which was partially built on dbaseII.
Like Condor 3, dbaseIII is menu-driven and has its menus built in several levels.
One of the problems discovered, was that higher level commands were not
included in all menu levels. That is, dBaseIII is limited to only basic
commands and anything above that is not supported. Many of the basic
capabilities are easy to use, but like Condor, dBaseIII has inconsistencies and
inefficiency. The keys used to move and select items in specific menus are not
always consistent through out. If you mark an item to be selected from a list,
once it=s marked it can not be unmarked. The only way to correct this is to
start over and enter everything again. This is time consuming and obviously
inefficient. Although the menus are helpful and guide you through the stages or
levels, there is the option to turn off the menus and work at a little faster
rate.
DBaseIII=s command are procedural (function oriented) and flexible. It
utilizes many of the common functions like: select records C. select fields C.
include expressions ( such as calculations) C. redirect output to the
screen or to the printer C. store results separately from the application
Included in dBaseIII is a limited editor which will let you create
commands using the editor or a word processor. Unfortunately, it is still
limited to certain commands, for example, it can not create move or copy
commands. It also has a screen design package which enables you to design how
you want your screen to look. The minimum RAM requirement of 256k for this
package really illustrates how old this application is. The most noticeable
problem documented about dBaseIII is inability to edit command lines. If, for
example, an error was made entering the name and address of a customer, simply
backing up and correcting the wrong character is impossible without deleting
everything up to the correction and re-entering everything again.
DBaseIII is portable and straightforward to work with. It allows users
to import and export files in two forms: fixed-length fields and delimited
fields. It can also perform dBaseII conversions. Creating file structures are
simple using the menus or the create command. It has field types that are still
being used today by applications such as Microsoft Access, for example, numeric
fields and memo fields which let you enter sentences or pieces of information,
like a customer=s address, which might vary in length from record to record.
Unlike Condor 3, dBaseIII is able to edit fields without having to start over.
Inserting new fields or deleting old fields can be done quite easily.
Data manipulation and query is very accessible through a number of
built-in functions. The list and display commands enable you to see the entire
file, selected records, and selected files. The browse command allows you to
scroll through all the fields inserting or editing records at the same time.
Calculation functions like sum, average, count, and total allow you to perform
arithmetic operations on data in a file. There are other functions available
like date and time functions, rounding, and formatting.

Omnifile
Omnifile is a single-file database system. This database is form
oriented meaning that it has a master form with alternate forms attached to it.
Therefore, you can work with one file and all of its subsets at the same time.
The idea of alternating forms provides for a greater level of security, for
example, if a user needed to update an address field, they would not be able to
access any fields which displayed confidential information. The field in need
of updating would only display the necessary or relevant information.
Menus are once again present and used as a guide. The use of function
keys allows the user to move about screens or forms quite easily. Menus are
also used for transferring information, either for importing or for exporting.
One inflexibility noted was that when copying files the two files must have the
exact same fields in the same order as the master file. This can be problem if
you want to copy identical fields from different files.

Forms design is simple but tedious. Although it may seem flexible to be
able to paint the screen in any manner that you wish, it can be time consuming
because no default screen is available. Like other database management systems,
the usual syntax for defining fields apply, field name followed by the length of
the field in braces. However, editing is a little more difficult. Changing the
form can be done by inserting and deleting, one character at a time. Omnifile
does not support moving fields around, nor inserting blank lines. This means
that if a field was to be added at the beginning of the record, the entire
record would have to be re-entered.
Records are added and viewed in the format that the user first designed
it. Invalid entries are not handled very well. Entering an illegal value in a
certain field results in a beep and no message, the user is left there to try
and decide what the error is. Omnifile does support the ability to insert new
records while viewing existing records and to make global or local changes.
Querying can be performed by using an index or using a non-indexed
search. If a search for a partial entry is made like ARob@ instead of
ARobinson@, a message is then displayed stating that not an exact match was
found. Overall These are just a few of the database programs that help start the
whole database management system era. It is apparent that DBMS=s today still
use some of the fundamentals first implemented by these old= systems. Items
like menus, forms, and portability are still key parts to current applications.
However, programs have come along since then, but still have as their bases the
same fundamental principles.

!

0

Other Keywords:
A Midsummer's Night Dream, Uncle Tom's Cabin, A Streetcar Named Desire, Invisible Man, A Tale of Two Cities, Absalom Absalom, Achilles, Huckleberry Finn, Adam Smith, Aeneid, Shakespeare, Agamemnon, Twain, Albert Camus, Oedipus Trilogy, Albert Einstein, Odyssey, Alchemist, Alexander Pope, Theodore Dreiser, Great Gatsby, Alfred Hitchcock, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Alice in Wonderland, Alice Walker, Dante Alighieri, All Quiet on the Western Front, Slavery, All the King's Men, William Wordsworth, All the Pretty Horses, Allen Ginsberg, America, American Revolution, Ralph Ellison, American Tragedy, Society, Washington Irving, Amis, Amy Lowell, Ancient Empire, Sonnets, King Lear, Ancient Empire, Angelou, Sonny's Blues, Animal Farm, William Shakespeare, Anna Karenina, Anne Frank, Anne of Green Gables, Anne Sexton, Antigone, Anton Chekov, Antony and Cleopatra, Aphra Behn, Apology, Aristotle, Aristotle's Ethics, Art of War, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Arthur Miller, Arthur's Court, Samuel Taylor Coelridge, Artist, As I Lay Dying, Atlas, Atomic Bomb, Austen, Autobiography of Malcolm X, Awakening, Aztecs, Bacon, Barn Burning, Raymond Carver, Bartleby the Scrivener Battle of Bean Tree theses Silas Beatrix Potter Beloved Ben Jonson Nathaniel Hawthorne Benito Cereno, Benjamin Franklin, Beowulf, Berkeley, Berlin, Beth Norton, Billy Budd, bin Laden, Black Boy, Sylvia Plath, Black Cat, Black Like Me, Black Studies, Blake, Bleak House, Albert Einstein, Bless Me Ultima, Bluest Eye, White Fang, book report, books, Stephen Crane, Brave New World, Braveheart William Butler Yeats British Brown C. S. Lewis Robert Frost Caesar Caged Bird Sings Salman Rushdie Samuel Beckett Call of the Wild Camus Candide Yellow Wall Paper, student, Canterbury Tales, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Captain, Carew, Carl Sandburg, Raisin in the Sun, Carlos Williams, Catch 22, Catcher in the Rye, Catcher, Ceasar, Young, Zora Neal Hurston, Century, Franz Kafka, Slaves, character analysis, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, William Blake, Charlotte, Chaucer esays Chocolate War Chopin Christopher Marlowe Wife of Bath Chrysalids Chrysanthemums Churchil Claude McKay Cold War college, Wuthering Heights, Colonial, Comedy of Errors, Scarlett Letter, Comedy, Community policing, Community, Tess, Testament, Conan Doyle, Connecticut Yankee, Conrad, Sinclair Lewis, Cottage, Count of Monte Cristo, Crane, Creon, Crime and Punishment, Crime Crito Crowe Ransom Cry the Beloved Country CS Lewis Cuckoo's Nest Susan Glaspell Culture Curse D. H. Lawrence Dante Alighieri, Dante, David Copperfield, Dean Howells, Death of a Salesman, Death, Arthur Miller, Declaration of Independence, Descartes, DH, Diary of Anne Frank, Dickenson, Dickinson, Dimmesdale, dissertation, Divine Comedy, Doctor Faustus, Jonathan Swift, Doctor Seuss, document, Doll's House, thesis, Don Juan, Don Quijote Donne Dorian Gray Dostoevsky Douglas papers Sir Gaiwan Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Dracula Glass Menagerie Sherlocke Holmes dream dreams Dryden, Dubus, DUrbervilles, Dying, Dylan Thomas, E. A. Poe, Shakespeare's Comedies, E. M. Forester, E.E. Cummings, Moby, Economics, Edgar Allen Poe, essay, Edith Wharton, Edmund Spenser, Electra, Elektra, Eliot, Elitism, Elizabeth Barret Browning Elizabeth Bishop Elliot Ellison Emancipation Emerson Emily Dickinson Scarlet Emily Dante Alighieri Vergil Emma Tale, Emperor Jones, Enemy of the People, English research, Enlightenment, Eodipus, Equus, Erich Remarque, Ernest Hemingway, Ernest, Erye, esay, C.S. Lewis, Euclid, Eugene O'Neill, Eumenides, European, Euthyphro, exam, existence, Exit to Eden, Eyre, Ezra Pound F. Scott Fitzgerald Fahrenheit 451 Fahrenheit Farewell to Arms Farewell to Manzanar book reports Farewell Faulkner Faust Walt Whitman Fenimore Cooper Fiction Fires of Jubilee Fitzgerald, Flann O'Brien, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Forest, Francis Bacon, Street car, Francis Scott Key, Frankenstein, Sarah Orne Jewett, Franz Kafka, Frederick, free essays, Freedom, French Lieutenant's Woman, Freud's dreams, Frey, Frost, Fuentes, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Gaiwan, Voltaire, Gatsby, Caeser, Gentleman, Geoffery Chaucer, George Bernard Shaw, George Eliot, George Orwell, German Germany Dorian Grey Gertrude Stein Ghosts termpapers, Gilgamesh Glass Menagerie Go Down Moses God exist God Goddess essays, Elizabeth Barret Browning termpaper Godfather Good Earth, Goodman, Gorbachev, Gore Vidal, Granny Weatherall, Grapes, Great Expectations, Great Gatsby, William James, Greek Mythology, Greek, Green, Greenleaf Whittier, Gulliver's Travels, Hairy Ape, Hamlet, Hans Christian Anderson, Hard Times, Virginia Woolf, Harriet Beacher Stowe, Odyssy, Harriet Jacobs, Hart, Hawthorne, essays about, Heart of Darkness, Heart Hedda Gabler Hemingway Hemingway's Short Stories Henrik Ibsen Anton Chekov Henry David Thoreau Henry IV Henry James Miller Henry V Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Society Herman Melville Hermann Hesse Hester Prynne, Hippolytus, History, Hitler, Rudyard Kipling, Hobbit, Homer, Horse, Huck Finn, Hyde, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Ibsen, Iliad, imagery, Oedipus, Immanuel Kant, Immigration, Imperialism, Incas, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Inferno, Inherit the Wind, Shakespeare's Plays, Invisible Man, Issac Newton, Ivan Ilyitch, J. D. Salinger, J. R. R. Tolkien, J.D. Salinger, Catch-22, Jack London, Jack Schaefer, Jackal James Baldwin James Fenimore Cooper James Joyce James Thurber Jane Austen Jane Eyre Jane Jean Jacques Rousseau Jean Louis Jack Kerouac Jean Toomer Jean-Paul Sartre Jekyl, Jewish, Jimmy Hendryx, Uncle, John Donne, John Dryden, Greenleaf Whittier, Wuthering, Grisham, John Keats, John Locke, John Milton, John Steinbeck, John Updike, Sir Gawain, Johnathan Swift, T. S. Elliot, Joseph Conrad William Faulkner student Joy Luck Club Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Jubilee Juliet Julius Caesar Julius Jungle Book Willa Cather Kafka Kate Chopin Katherine Anne Porter Keats Shelley Kill Killer Angels King Arthur King Arthur's Court King Lear King, Knight, Kurt Vonnegut, Shakespeare's Tragedies, Don Quixote, Labor, Walden, Lady Macbeth, Lancelot, Langston Hughes, Last of the Mohicans, Lazarus, Lear, free essays, Leaves, Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Leo Tolstoy, Les Miserables, Tony Morrison, Lesson Before Dying, Lesson, Letter, T.S. Eliot, Lewis Carroll, Students, library, Life of Frederick Douglas, Light in August, Light, Literature, Little Women, Lord of the Flies, Lord of the Rings, Lord Tennyson, Lord, Lost, Louis Aragon, Lovelace Love's Labour's Lost Lowell Macbeth macroeconomics microeconomics Madame Bovary Main Street Makepeace Thackery Malcolm X Mallory Maltese Falcon Mann Manzanar Margaret Atwood Mark Twain Marlowe Marner Martian Chronicles Martin Luther King Mary Shelly Mary Shelly's Frankenstein Masque of the Red Death Matthew Arnold Maya Angelou Maya Mayans, Mayor of Casterbridge, Mcbeth, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, McKay, Measure for Measure, Melville, men, Menagerie, Merchant, Merry Wives of Windsor, Toni, Metamorphosis, Mice, Gaiwan, Drayton, Midsummer's Night Dream, night's midterm, Miguel de Cervantes, Milton, Moby Dick, Mockingbird, Mohicans, Monte, Moon, Moore, Morrison, Mortal Moses Mourning Becomes Electra Movement Much Ado about Nothing Muir My Antonia Mythology Nabokov Named Desire Narrative Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas Nashe Nathaniel Hawthorne essays on Native American Native Son Native New Testament Newton Night, Norman Mailer, Odysey, Geoffrey Chaucer, Oedipus destiny, Of Mice and Men, Okri, Old Man and the Sea, Erich Remarque, Old Testament, Oliver Twist, Wendell Holmes, Oliver, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Oscar Wilde, Othello, Outsiders, Ovid, book, Ovidius, Ox-Bow Incident, paper, Paradise, Parliament, Peace, Pearl, Penn Warren, Pepys, essays on Pericles Phaedo Phillis Wheatley Pickwick Picture of Dorian Gray Picture Pigs Pilgrims Plague D.H. Lawrence Plath Plato Plato's Republic Poe Poem Poe's Short Stories Poet Political, Politics, Pope, Shakespeare Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, John Updike, Portrait, Prejudice, Pride and Prejudice, Pride, Prince and the Pauper, Prince, Proclamation, Prologue, Vladimir Nabokov, Punishment, Pushkin, Quixote, Rainman, Raisin in the Sun, Raleigh, Ralph Ellison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Raven Raymond Carver Edith Wharton Red Badge of Courage reference Religion Rene Descartes report Republic research paper Return of the Native Revolution Richard II Mary Shelly Richard III Richard Wright, Richard, Rings, Rise of Silas Lapham, Rivals, Robert Browning, Robert Frost, Oedipus fate, George Orwell, Robert Lowell, Homer, Robinson Crusoe, Great Expectations, Jeffers, Rocking Horse Winner, Roger Chillingworth, Romeo and Juliet, Poems, Romeo, Rudyard Kipling, Russia, Rye, sale, Salesman, Salinger, Salman Rushdie, Samuel Beckett, J.R.R. Tolkien, Samuel Clemens, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Taylor Coelridge, Sandburg, Sappho, Sarah Orne Jewett, Saroyan, Sartre, Satan Sawyer Leo Tolstoy Scarlet Letter Schaefer school Science Screw Sea Seamus Heaney Thomas Hobbes Secret Sharer Secret Self reliance Hawthorn Self Huckleberry Oedipus Rex, Self-reliance, sell, Sense and Sensibility, Separate Peace, Ovid, Separate, Sexton, Shadows, Shakespear, Dylan Thomas, essays on, Sharer, Sherlock, E. E. Cummings, Shooting an Elephant, Shrew, Siddhartha, Silas Marner, Sinclair Lewis, Sir Frances Bacon, Henrik Ibsen, Sir Issac Newton, John Locke, Sir Lancelot, free research papers, Sir Thomas More, Douglass, Sir Walter Scott, Skelton, Slave Sleepy Hollow image Snow Falling on Cedars Kurt Vonnegut Social Hierarchy Society Socrates John Keats, Solomon, Son, Albert Camus, Song of Solomon, Song, Sonnet, Oedipus the King, Flann O'Brien Sonny's Blues Sophocles Sophomore Sound and the Fury Soviet Union Spirit, Stalin, Star Wars, Stein, Cuckoo's Nest, Steinbeck, Stephen Crane, Stephen King, Zora Neale Hurston Steppenwolf Storm Stranger Streetcar Named Desire Jonathan Swift Students, Sula, Sun Also Rises, Jack London, Poe, Sun Tzu, Sun, Survival, Susan Glaspell, Swift, Sylvia Plath Sylvia Symbol Symbolism T. S. Eliot Tale of Two Cities Tales, Illiad, Taming of the Shrew, Tempest, Tender Mercies, Tennessee Williams, term paper, terrorism essays, Thomas Hardy, Tess D'Urbervilles, Testament, essays over, The Awakening, The Bear Bell Jar The Canterbury Tales Cask of Amontillado John Milton The Color Purple The Count of Monte Cristo, The Crucible, Ralph Elison, The Dead, Death of Ivan Ilyitch, Giver, The Grapes of Wrath, Great Awakening, Henry James, The Great Gatsby, Jilting of Granny Weatherall, The Jungle, Mayor of Casterbridge Paradise Lost The Merchant of Venice Mohicans The Prince The Scarlet Letter The Things They Carried, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Shakespeare, Theodore Dreiser, thesis, JRR Tolkien, Eugene O'Neill, Things Fall Apart, Third Reich F. Scott Fitzgerald Thomas Hardy Thomas Hobbes Thomas More Gatsby Thomas Wolfe Thoreau, Thorne, Thornton Wilder, Thurber, To Kill a Mockingbird, To the Lighthouse, Tolkien, Jubilee, Tom Jones, Tom Sawyer, Toni Morrison, Toomer, Transcendentalism Treasure Island Phillis Wheatley Treaty Versailles Trees Trial Trifles Truman research papers, Turn of the Screw, Twain, term papers, Twelfth Night, Miguel de Cervantes, Tess of D'Urbervilles, Twelve Angry Men, Twist, Louis Aragon, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Sun Tzu, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Julius Caesar, Midsummer Night's Dream, university Upton Sinclair Utopia Ezra Pound Vanity Fair Oedipus tragedy Vaughan Venice Vergil, essays, Verona, Vicar of Wakefield., Virgil, E.M. Forester, Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Voltaire, Vonnegut, Walden Two, Wallace Stevens, Wallpaper, Walt Whitman, Walter Raleigh, Joseph Conrad, Washington Irving Weatherall Weldon When the Caged Bird Sings White Fang White Whitman Wicked Wife of Bath Wife Wild Duck, Willa Cather, Seamus Heaney, Invisible, Dissertations, William Blake, Jekyll, William Butler Yeats, Robert Browning, William Dean Howells, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, William Faulkner, Moby Dick, William Golding, William James, Thesis Statements, Benjamin Franklin, William Shakespeare, Menagerie, William Wordsworth essays Williams Winston Churchill Wiseblood Wolfe Sidhartha Women Woodrow Wilson Wordsworth John Donne World War I, Nathaniel Hawthorne, World War II, Tennessee Williams, World, reports, Wrath, Henry David Thoreau, Wright, write, Wuthering Heights, slave narrative, Dante's Inferno, Dante's Purgatory, Edmund Spenser, WWI, Joyce Carol Oates, Herman Melville, WWII, Yeats, Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare's Sonnets, Yellow Wallpaper, Harriet Jacobs, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown, Harriet Beecher Stowe