SPAM-LOW: Re: XT 5160

[Jay West]

Jim wrote...
> Revelation was written as a near singlehanded effort by a man
> named Roger Harpel.

And then there's "Advanced Revelation" which was actually quite different 
from the outside. Then there was "Open Insight" which was vastly different 
inside and out :) To this day I actually still support one Advanced 
Revelation customer.

> Ulimate considered buying revelation, and Microdata licensed a version
> of it to run on the M1000 that was pretty horrible.

Revelation, I can believe that. But Advanced Revelation (which I used 
extensively) seemed to be way too tightly integrated to the PC/DOS 
environment. I'm assuming it was the older Revelation that they had up on an 
M1000? I was a Microdata dealer for a while, and I never ran into Revelation 
there. Nifty, I have learned something :)

> There are a huge amount of packages that run large chain stores such
> as auto parts stores, and other such chains that are pick that don't even
> know they are run by pick systems.

It was also quite prevalent in Health Care, video rental, and hardware 
stores.

> IBM owns the biggest competitor in the unix arena to pick, Universe and
> unidata.  They continue to thrive there.

Last I half-way followed the old MV markets, IBM was actually continuing to 
enhance uniVerse, which suprised me. I figured they bought it to kill it. 
But I haven't heard of any major updates in the past few years (not that I 
still follow it really).

> My background is as a system developer for pick vendors and I worked
> in the pick assembler system code from 1975 to 1990.

Yes, I remember talking to you on the phone. I didn't recall past knowledge 
of you specifically, but I definitely noticed we knew all the same people it 
sounded like :) What vendors and subsystems did you work on? I spent time in 
GA's overflow management routines as well as some monitor work, a few years 
prior to Ian's reign (Mike Bender I believe I recall?). Also did a stint at 
MDCS working on the tapeio modes for sequel. Then MDCS tapped me to 
implement Forth on the MDCS platforms so they could migrate some healthcare 
product - I forget the particulars - but I turned down the job. Many times I 
wish I hadn't, that would have been fun.

> I don't think a
> reasonable
> living can be made in pick these days,

Sad, but true. Pick was really an incredible database, unfortunately they 
added OS cruft to it in the beginning. By the time they stripped out the OS 
stuff and made it run as a layer on unix & DOS/WIN, it was just too late. 
Normally, accessing a real database inside of BASIC is rather a pain, and 
you spend a lot of time thinking about other things than the application 
problem at hand. With Pick, touching the database was so intuitive... like 
programming with fine thin leather gloves on instead of mittens. The only 
thing I wished they did different was tie the dictionary straight into 
basic, as opposed to referencing via separate variables and the like. Yes, 
you could program around this, but... twas the only shortcoming.

> sorry for the personal comments, just got carried away.

I know exactly how you feel.

Jay West