R:Base
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| Original author(s) | Wayne Erickson |
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| Developer(s) | MicroRim, Inc. |
| Initial release | 1981 |
| Platform | PC |
| Type | relational database |
R:BASE (or RBASE) was the first relational database program for the PC. Created by Wayne Erickson in 1981, on November 13, 1981, Erickson and his brother, Ron Erickson, incorporated the company, MicroRim, Inc. to sell the database, MicroRIM.
In June 1998, A. Razzak Memon, President & CEO of R:BASE Technologies, Inc. (a privately held company in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, USA) acquired the R:BASE products from Abacus Software Group. Since 1998, R:BASE is available as R:BASE for Windows v6.1a, v7.1, v7.5, v7.6, Turbo V-8, v9.1, and now v9.5 (32/64) for Windows.
Created by Wayne Erickson in 1981, the original R:Base database was written on a Heathkit CPM computer that Erickson built at home. On November 13, 1981, Erickson and his brother, Ron Erickson, incorporated the company, MicroRim, Inc. to sell the database, MicroRIM. (RIM was an acronym for Relational Information Management, a mainframe database developed by Erikson at Boeing Computer Services, as part of NASA's IPAD project for which he and NASA colleagues received a NASA award, was used by NASA to track Space shuttle heat shield tiles).
The earliest version released by Microrim was called R:Base 4000 and was released in 1983. It worked with early version of Microsoft MS-DOS or IBM PC DOS (version 2 or above). It shipped with a binder-type manual and the program on 360K floppy disks. The system being DOS-based, the interface was entirely text with the exception of DOS line-draw characters.
Privately funded and ultimately venture backed, the MicroRim database products achieved significant market share in the mid-1980s in what was dubbed by some, the "database wars" between R:Base and the market share leader, Ashton-Tate's dBASE. One clever MicroRim ad stated "R-way versus D-hardway," a jab at the less relational dBASE architecture. MicroRim adhered to the rules of the father of relational database technology, Edgar F. Codd and prided itself on the elegance of its code.
In the mid-1980s, when Microsoft did not have their own database, they obtained a license to resell R:BASE in Europe so they could have a full suite of software products.
In June 1998, R:BASE Technologies, Inc. (a privately held company in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, USA) acquired the R:BASE products from Abacus Software Group.
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