In March 1999, dBase was sold to KSoft, Inc. which was soon renamed to dBASE Inc. ( In 2004 dBASE Inc. was renamed to dataBased Intelligence, Inc .).

Software company Ashton-Tate was ready to release their dBase IV database manipulation program, but pushed the release date back to add support for SQL.

The CP / M operating system ( and its huge software library featuring hits like Wordstar and dBase ) was known to be " the Z80 disk operating system ", and its success is partly due to the popularity of the Z80.

Compared to other database programs of the day — Ashton-Tate's dBase III, MDBS Knowledgeman, Borland Paradox 2. 0 and Borland Reflex 1. 0 — Symphony's FORM environment was not as robust, lacking the analytical abilities of Reflex and the pseudo relational power of dBase III.

dBase II was the first widely used database management system ( DBMS ) for microcomputers.

This changed with the disastrous introduction of dBase IV, who's stability was so poor many users were forced to try other solutions.

Hal Pawluk, who handled marketing for the nascent company, decided to change the name to the more business-like " dBase ", and suggested calling it version two to suggest it was less buggy than an initial release.

dBase II was the result.

dBase was one of a very few " professional " programs on the platform at that time, and became a huge success.

The resulting dBase III was released in May 1984.

In October 1991, while the case was still under appeal, Borland International acquired Ashton-Tate, and as one of the merger's provisions the U. S. Justice Department required Borland to end the lawsuit against Fox and allow other companies to use the dBase language without the threat of legal action.

Because dBase was not designed with this in mind, developers had to be careful about porting ( borrowing ) programming code that assumed a certain context and it would make writing larger-scale modular code difficult.

dBase was also one of the first business-oriented languages to implement string evaluation.

But, dBase tended to be used for custom internal applications for small and medium companies where the lack of protection against copying, as compared to compiled software, was often less of an issue.

dBase was very limited in its ability to process memo fields, but some other xBase languages such as Clipper treat memo fields as strings just like character fields for all purposes except permanent storage.

Borland was also developing a competitor product called The Borland dBase Compiler for Windows.

* Lotus-like text menus and windows which was the native interface ( in contrast to dBase which had a command line interface with menus layered on top ).

VP-Info was a competitor to the Clipper and dBase applications in the 1990s.

In the early 80s, David Clark met Dr. George Gratzer, a mathematics professor at the University of Manitoba, at ComputerLand in Winnipeg where Dr Gratzer was looking for someone who could program in dBase.

Mr Clark had been using dBase II, but was frustrated by its limitations for reporting on more than 3 tables at a time.

Rights to the dBase product line are currently owned by dBase LLC.

dBase objects can be dynamically subclassed by adding new properties to them at runtime.

The May 1983 release of dBASE II RunTime further entrenched dBase in the VAR market by allowing the VARs to deploy their products using the lower-cost RunTime system instead of purchasing the full developer version for the end users.

Its ability to simultaneously open and manipulate multiple files containing related data led Ashton-Tate to label dBase a " relational database " although it did not meet the criteria defined by Dr. Edgar F. Codd's relational model ; it could more accurately be called an application development language and integrated navigational database management system that is influenced by relational concepts.

dBase used a runtime interpreter architecture, which allowed the user to execute commands by typing them in a command line " dot prompt.

Microsoft recommends saving a Microsoft Works database file in the dBase file format so that it can be read by Microsoft Excel.

In September 1991 Borland purchased Ashton-Tate, bringing the dBase and InterBase databases to the house, in an all stock transaction.

Blueprint, developed to support 1-2-3, supported a variety of data sources, including SQL / DS, DB2, FOCUS and a variety of similar mainframe systems, as well as dBase and the early Microsoft / Ashton-Tate efforts that would eventually develop into Microsoft SQL Server.

* Database programs adapted for the PCW included Sage Database, Cardbox and dBase II.

dBase features an IDE with a Command Window and Navigator, a just in time compiler, a preprocessor, a virtual machine interpreter, a linker for creating dBase application. exe's, a freely available runtime engine, and numerous two-way GUI design tools including a Form Designer, Report Designer, Menu Designer, Label Designer, Datamodule Designer, SQL Query Designer, and Table Designer.

In December 1990, U. S. District judge Terry Hatter, Jr. dismissed Ashton-Tate's lawsuit and invalidated Ashton-Tate's copyrights for not disclosing that dBase had been based, in part, on the public domain JPLDIS.

Today, implementations of the dBase language have expanded to include many features targeted for business applications, including object-oriented programming, manipulation of remote and distributed data via SQL, Internet functionality, and interaction with modern devices.

As an application development platform, dBase fills a gap between lower level languages such as C, C ++, and Java and high-level proprietary 4GLs ( fourth generation languages ) and purely visual tools, providing relative ease-of-use for business people with less formal programming skill and high productivity for professional developers willing to trade off the low-level control.

dBase uses < tt >. ndx </ tt > files for single indexes, and < tt >. mdx </ tt > ( multiple-index ) files for holding between 1 and 48 indexes.

As the product matured, it remained a DOS tool for many years, but added elements of the C programming language and Pascal programming language, as well as OOP, and the code-block data-type ( hybridizing the concepts of dBase macros, or string-evaluation, and function pointers ), to become far more powerful than the original.

These newer implementations all strive for full compatibility with the standard dBase / xBase syntax, while also offering OOP approaches and target-based syntax such as < tt > SQLExecute ()</ tt >.

Clarion Software and many third-party tool developers created LEMs for all purposes, including an extension for connecting to other databases such as dBase, Clipper and Paradox.

In 1994, Borland launched dBase V for Windows and dBASE V for DOS before selling the dBASE name and product line to dBASE Inc.

* Clipper ( programming language ), a programming language for dBase III

* dBase III / IV file manager

Vulcan later became the dBase system whose easy-to-use syntax effectively launched the personal computer database industry.