Macintosh Computers
Business Systems Development

Paquetes Interactivos S.A. of C.V.

Ing. Pedro Baram K.
General Manager

1984, the year in which a George Orwell omen would come true. The year in which the world would be dominated through technology. The year in which "Big Brother" used giant monitors through which he would attract the great masses of men and women to robotize them, and thus use them at his will. A gray world, devoid of emotions and feelings.

1984, the year in which Apple Computer, thanks to the vision of its co-founder Steve Jobs, introduced its new product to the market in the United States: the Macintosh computer. A revolutionary machine that radically modifies the concept of the man-machine relationship. A machine design that allows users of all levels access to computing, in an easy and intuitive way.

A machine with a graphical interface that makes an analogy between the cover of a desk and the computer screen. An interface that presents objects on the screen through which the user operates an application. A machine that allows man to dominate technology instead of being dominated by it.

This new way of using a computer soon attracts the attention of users in the United States, Europe and Japan. People like Guy Kawasaki begin an "evangelization" process of convincing software developers to write programs for the Macintosh platform.

Due to its graphic characteristics, applications emerge that allow you to create drawings and write texts. Soon an application was developed that allows texts and drawings to be interspersed to form a page. Given the Macintosh's graphical features, these pages can easily be elegantly formatted, using graphics and text in various fonts.

Simultaneously, other applications begin to appear. Creating spreadsheets becomes easy and intuitive. As with page layout applications, the Macintosh's graphics capabilities allow you to elegantly format spreadsheets.

As the world continues to pay more attention to page layout, with the advent of Macintosh hard drives, database applications emerge, which are the essence of business computing.

Initially, Macintosh databases were simple list managers that allowed you to search and find information contained in a single file. By using these applications it was possible to create telephone directories and other simple jobs. Examples of these applications are File from Microsoft and Reflex from Borland International.

However, the real business of almost any business is tracking orders, raw materials, finished product inventory, customers, accounts payable, and most importantly, accounts receivable. Business databases require that all files be dynamically related to each other and this information must be able to be processed and communicated to decision centers. If a customer exceeds their credit limit, the seller must be aware of this before a new order is placed.

Large software houses in the United States and Europe undertook the task of writing relational databases for the Macintosh. Ashton Tate introduced dBASE Mac to the market, Odesta Corporation introduced a program called Double Helix, Blyth Software wrote its OMNIS program, Fox Software introduced its FoxBase+/Mac program, and ACI France introduced a product called 4Th Dimension.

The challenge for all of these software manufacturers was to be able to offer a product that, in addition to taking advantage of the Macintosh's graphic and network communication capabilities, was functional. This functionality consists of being able to process and communicate large volumes of information in an easy, efficient and intuitive way.

Of all these products, dBASE Mac from Ashton Tate, the most important database manufacturer for the MS DOS environment, had to leave the market because its functionality was overshadowed by the other products.

Below we present the relevant characteristics of each of the products that continue to be sold today for their programming features as well as their capacity for modification, multiple access and remote access. All of the database applications considered provide the programmer with powerful tools that contain similar features. For example, all of them can import or export data in ASCII, SYLK, DIF or PICT formats. Each one supports alphanumeric, text, numeric, date, logical and image fields. Likewise, all are searchable and contain unique fields, automatic insertion of default values, and the ability to define ranges of values for fields. Searches in each program can be carried out in multiple fields and using logical conditions. The differences between the databases are shown in the attached table.

Double Helix 3

Over time, Odesta Corporation has added new features and speed to its product. Double Helix has a characteristic style in which icons are manipulated to representThey contain database elements such as fields and reports. Nowhere in Double Helix are commands typed. Most programming is carried out by forming blocks that represent operations on database fields. One or more fields are added to a block, and then the block produces a result in another field or on the screen. More complex tasks are handled by sequences, essentially Macros composed of commands selected from a list. Programmers accustomed to typing textual commands are surprised by this way of programming, and novice programmers can advance faster than when using traditional systems.

Applications developed with Double Helix are easily modifiable. They will never be as fast as those developed in compileable database programs. Odesta has improved the speed of some commands and suggests using indexes on commonly used fields to increase search speed at the expense of additional disk space to store these indexes.

Double Helix is inherently multi-user. That is, applications developed in Double Helix can run in multi-user mode without any modification. Double Helix on the Macintosh is fully compatible with a VAX/VMS version of the same program, and the files can be read directly by DataDesk, another Odesta program used to do statistical analysis.

Double Helix runs on practically any Macintosh, however its interface is the most difficult to learn to use.

OMNIS 5

The first version of OMNIS was a fast and reliable alphanumeric database. The current version offers features that put OMNIS in the modern Macintosh world. It contains an application generator, which allows you to design interfaces containing programmed buttons. OMNIS has a version that runs under MS-DOS and OS/2, a situation that allows applications to be transported between platforms with relative ease.

Programming in OMNIS differs from traditional programming in that textual commands are selected from lists (a similar approach to Double Helix sequences). Due to this, syntax errors are avoided when running the application through the interpreter. The number of commands available is rich enough to carry out the most frequent tasks in a database with one or two instructions.

OMNIS makes it easy to carry out complex operations such as developing applications with multiple windows open simultaneously or deleting duplicate records. When importing logs from different sources or having multiple users feeding information over a network, filtering out duplicate logs saves time and disk space.

FoxBase+/Mac 2.0

FoxBase+/Mac came to the Macintosh as an austere database obviously translated from a version for the MS-DOS environment. But FoxBase+ was a fast application, which is extremely important for a database.

Over the past two years, FoxBase+/Mac has added, piece by piece, the features necessary to build applications that use the Macintosh interface. FoxBase+/Mac includes image fields, buttons to create the interface, a report generator and a screen editor that allows placing objects for screen design and a code editor that allows programming using a syntax similar to that used in Pascal. The code editor, while not as convenient as the application generator found in OMNIS, provides at least a reference to the programmer.

The code editor and the language associated with it, called FoxCode, is the essence of the applications developed with FoxBase+/Mac. FoxCode, using a Pascal-like syntax, generates editable instruction tables to describe the layout of the screen. This system allows FoxBase+/Mac to generate program and format files to create an executable application. This aspect of the FoxBase environment, being more typical of PC programming practice, allows developers to port application logic between Macintosh and MS-DOS.

The disadvantage of using the FoxBase+ approach is that it places almost all of the responsibility for program correctness on the programmer, making developments take longer.

4Th Dimension

The launch of 4Th Dimension (also known as 4D), was the most notable software event of all time. Probably what the Macintosh is to computers, 4D is to programming languages.

With 4D it is possible to program any function found in other databases, and 4D offers graphing functions and Oracle/SQL extensions that no other database can match.

For the development of the interface, in addition to the usual buttons found in other databases, 4D offers, to name just a few, invisible buttons, thermometers and rules for feeding and consulting information.

The 4D screen editor offers drawing tools that rival those found in dedicated drawing programs. The 4D programming language contains the richest and most complete set of commands of any Macintosh database, and the development environment automatically organizes the programmer by neatly storing screens and procedures for each of the files.

4D also has an interpreter and a program editor that allow in a very simple way to program, test and modify the procedures that control the screens for data feeding, the dialogs to show options and the lists with records for generating reports. The available commands, as well as the fields available in each file, are shown in lists and are selected from them, thus avoiding possible syntax errors.

Creating menus for applications is extremely simple, since it is enough to name the menu item you want and assign to this name a procedure that will be executed. 4D offers the possibility of assigning users to different groups, and allowing access to screens or procedures only to those users with authorized access codes.

4D optionally has a compiler and extensions such as a spreadsheet, a word processor and a 3-dimensional grapher that interact with the information contained in the database.

What Database to Use?

When it comes to a simple database or a database that will need to be constantly modified, Double Helix is probably the best option. If you want to develop a database with critical speed requirements and have enough time to carry out a serious programming project, you should consider FoxBase+/Mac. The other two databases considered are between these two extremes. omnis 5 offers an interesting selection of capabilities and features, as it offers the possibility of transporting applications between operating environments. 4Th. Dimension allows you to create a more intuitive interface and includes a true high-level programming language that allows you to control all the details in developing an application.

At the moment, the only database for Macintosh computers represented in Mexico is 4Th. Dimension, whose exclusive representative is:
 

INTERSOFT S.A. de C.V.

Palacio de Versalles 100 Local C

Col. Lomas Reforma

México D.F. 11930

Tel. +52 55 5596-2518 Cel. +52 55 2878-7602