|
PC-File
PC-File was a flat-file database computer application most often run under MS-DOS. Software It was one of the first of three widely popular software products sold via the marketing method that became known as shareware. It was originally written by Jim "Button" Knopf in late 1982, and he formed the company Buttonware to develop, market, and support it. The program was usually distributed for the cost of diskettes by local user groups. There was no copy protection and a manual was distributed as a file on the same diskettes as the program. It was extremely simple to use and extremely stable. It ran on just about any PC, while competing commercial products costing hundreds of dollars were often picky and full of bugs. Knopf originally wrote the software for his own use to manage a church mailing list, on an Apple II. Later, he ported it to CP/M, and then to MS-DOS. Other people heard about it, and started requesting copies. Eventually, the cost of sending out update disks inspir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jim Knopf
Jim Knopf, nicknamed Jim Button ("Knopf" meaning "button" in German) (October 20, 1942 – October 1, 2013), was considered by many to be one of the "fathers" of shareware (so named by fellow software veteran Peter Norton). As an IBM employee, he wrote a program to help with a local church congregation. When demand for his program consumed too much of his time, he quit IBM and created Buttonware. He released his first program, PC-File (a flat file database), in late 1982 as "user supported software". Knopf used the "Jim Button" pseudonym to avoid PC-File conflicting with his day job. By 1984 he had made hundreds of revisions and released 15 versions of the software, describing himself as "just an implementer of the ideas of users". Knopf collaborated with PC-Talk (communications software) developer Andrew Fluegelman to adopt similar names (PC-File was originally "Easy-File"), and prices, for their initial shareware offerings; they also agreed to mention each other's product ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shareware
Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. Shareware is often offered as a download from a website. Shareware differs from freeware, which is fully-featured software distributed at no cost to the user but without source code being made available; and free and open-source software, in which the source code is freely available for anyone to inspect and alter. There are many types of shareware and, while they may not require an initial up-front payment, many are intended to generate revenue in one way or another. Some limit use to personal non- commercial purposes only, with purchase of a license required for use in a business enterprise. The software itself may be time-limited, or it may remind the user that payment would be appreciated. Types of shareware Trialware Trialware ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Fluegelman
Andrew Cardozo Fluegelman (November 27, 1943 – July 6, 1985) was a publisher, photographer, programmer and attorney best known as a pioneer of what is now known as the shareware business model for software marketing. He was also the founding editor of both ''PC World'' and '' Macworld'' and the leader of the 1970s '' New Games'' movement, which advocated the development of noncompetitive games. Early life Fluegelman was raised in White Plains, New York.Rodgers, Michael (October 20, 1985).The Mysterious Death of a Man Who Loved Life. ''Image''. The San Francisco Examiner. p. 19. He graduated from Yale University in 1969. Career Attorney Following graduation, Fluegelman worked in Midtown Manhattan before moving to California and working for a law firm in San Francisco. He was admitted to the State Bar of California in January 1971. He resigned in 1972 without any particular plan about his future. Writing The following year, Fluegelman started working for the Whole Earth Catal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PC-Write
PC-Write was a computer word processor and was one of the first three widely popular software products sold via the marketing method that became known as shareware. It was originally written by Bob Wallace in early 1983. Overview PC-Write is a modeless editor, using control characters and special function keys to perform various editing operations. By default it aaccepts many of the same control key commands as WordStar while adding many of its own features. It can produce plain ASCII text files, but there are also features that embedded control characters in a document to support automatic section renumbering, bold and italic fonts, and other such. A feature that is useful in list processing (as used in Auto LISP) is its ability to find matching open and closed parenthesis "( )"; this matching operation also worked for the other paired characters: , and . Lines beginning with particular control characters n and/or a period (.) contain commands that are evaluated when the docu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flat-file Database
A flat-file database is a database stored in a file called a flat file. Records follow a uniform format, and there are no structures for indexing or recognizing relationships between records. The file is simple. A flat file can be a plain text file (e.g. csv, txt or tsv), or a binary file. Relationships can be inferred from the data in the database, but the database format itself does not make those relationships explicit. The term has generally implied a small database, but very large databases can also be flat. Overview Plain text files usually contain one record per line. Examples of flat files include /etc/passwd and /etc/group on Unix-like operating systems. Another example of a flat file is a name-and-address list with the fields ''Name'', ''Address'' and ''Phone Number''. Flat files are typically either delimiter-separated or fixed-width. Delimiter-separated values In delimiter-separated values files, the fields are separated by a character or string c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marketing
Marketing is the act of acquiring, satisfying and retaining customers. It is one of the primary components of Business administration, business management and commerce. Marketing is usually conducted by the seller, typically a retailer or manufacturer. Products can be marketed to other businesses (B2B Marketing, B2B) or directly to consumers (B2C). Sometimes tasks are contracted to dedicated marketing firms, like a Media agency, media, market research, or advertising agency. Sometimes, a trade association or government agency (such as the Agricultural Marketing Service) advertises on behalf of an entire industry or locality, often a specific type of food (e.g. Got Milk?), food from a specific area, or a city or region as a tourism destination. Market orientations are philosophies concerning the factors that should go into market planning. The marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold, including the channels that will be used to adverti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DBASE
dBase (also stylized dBASE) was one of the first database management systems for microcomputers and the most successful in its day. The dBase system included the core database engine, a query system, a Form (programming), forms engine, and a programming language that tied all of these components together. Originally released as Vulcan for PTDOS in 1978, the CP/M port caught the attention of Ashton-Tate in 1980. They licensed it, re-released it as dBASE II, and later ported it to IBM PC computers running DOS. On the PC platform in particular, dBase became one of the best-selling software titles for a number of years. A major upgrade was released as dBase III and ported to a wider variety of platforms, including UNIX and OpenVMS, VMS. By the mid-1980s, Ashton-Tate was one of the "big three" software publishers in the early business-software market, along with Lotus Development and WordPerfect. Starting in the mid-1980s, several companies produced their own variations on the dBase ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as "DOS" (which is also the generic acronym for disk operating system). MS-DOS was the main operating system for IBM PC compatibles during the 1980s, from which point it was gradually superseded by operating systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI), in various generations of the graphical Microsoft Windows operating system. IBM licensed and re-released it in 1981 as PC DOS 1.0 for use in its PCs. Although MS-DOS and PC DOS were initially developed in parallel by Microsoft and IBM, the two products diverged after twelve years, in 1993, with recognizable differences in compatibility, syntax and capabilities. Beginning in 1988 with DR-DOS, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Wallace (computer Scientist)
Bob Wallace (May 29, 1949 – September 20, 2002) was an American software developer, programmer and the ninth Microsoft employee. He was the first popular user of the term shareware, creator of the word processing program PC-Write, founder of the software company Quicksoft and an "online drug guru" who devoted much time and money into the research of psychedelic drugs. Biography Bob Wallace was born in Arlington, Virginia. He first worked on computers as a member of an Explorer Scout troop sponsored by Control Data Corp.in Bethesda, Maryland. His father was an economist who later became Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of John F. Kennedy. Beginning in 1967, Wallace attended Brown University, where he worked on the pioneering hypertext File Retrieval and Editing System with Andries van Dam and Ted Nelson. After attending the University of California, Santa Cruz for two years (where he briefly majored in theatre), he received his undergraduate d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software
Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital computers in the mid-20th century. Early programs were written in the machine language specific to the hardware. The introduction of high-level programming languages in 1958 allowed for more human-readable instructions, making software development easier and more portable across different computer architectures. Software in a programming language is run through a compiler or Interpreter (computing), interpreter to execution (computing), execute on the architecture's hardware. Over time, software has become complex, owing to developments in Computer network, networking, operating systems, and databases. Software can generally be categorized into two main types: # operating systems, which manage hardware resources and provide services for applicat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
