The file system was (creatively) called RMS - Record Management System.
I assisted with ported the Cognos PowerHouse 4GL to Vax in the mid-80's.

We supported only RMS. DEC had a file system called DBMS-32 (Codasyl style,
like
Cullinet Total. In fact, at the time we joked that Image was a virtual
"image" of the Total database.) The only real users of DBMS-32 were people
like ASK with the Manman software. That decision lead to the inital split
between Cognos and ASK... no Quiz for Manman DEC users.

RMS was a very strong indexed file system. PowerHouse users successfully
implemented
significant systems on RMS. Oracle and Ingres were becoming popular at that
time,
and Cognos lost many PowerHouse sales because the RMS system lacked many of
the
features (read promises) of the relational databases. In fact, Cognos and
Ingres
nearly teamed together to marry a good database with a good 4GL. Mr. Ellison
might not be as rich today if that marriage had succeeded.

DEC brought out a relational database, again (creatively) called RDB -
Relational
Database. Cognos spent lot's of time and money to port to RDB, and Digital
promised
to help Cognos sell the 4GL. Again, the marketplace preferred Oracle to RDB.

Cognos chose to adapt a relational database from a company originally called
Groton Database
Systems (GDS). GDS was started by the guy who wrote Datatrieve and RDB for
DEC.
The Galaxy GDS database morphed to Interbase when Ashton-Tate bought it,
then Ashton-Tate
was bought by Borland.

Cognos won a few deals, but Oracle got to big to compete with. The Cognos
version
was called Starbase.

We had two good jokes at the time....

Q. How do you tell the difference between Starbase and Oracle?
A. Starbase has implemented the features Oracle promises for the next
release.

Q. What's the best platform to run Oracle on?
A. A slide projector.

Today, Oracle owns RDB. I think Borland still owns Interbase.

Harley "been there, done it, still have the rash" Shouldice


-----Original Message-----
From: NTC John Pitman [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 1:22 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT - HP's MPE-IX vs VMS


<snip>

In those days (early 80s), the VMS KSAM was very good, and many many
products used it exclusively, - forget the name now.

<snip>

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