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dBase (also stylized dBASE) was one of the first database management systems for microcomputers and the most successful in its day. The dBase system includes the core database engine, a query system, a forms engine, and a programming language that ties all of these components together. dBase's underlying file format, the file, is widely used in applications needing a simple format to store structured data. Originally released as Vulcan for PTDOS in 1978, the CP/M port caught the attention of Ashton-Tate in 1980. They licensed it and 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, adding UNIX, and VMS. By the mid-1980s, Ashton-Tate was one of the "big three" software publishers in the early business software market, the others being Lotus Development and WordPerfect. Starting in the mid-1980s, several companies produced their own variations on the dBase product and especially the dBase programming language. These included FoxBASE+ (later renamed FoxPro), Clipper, and other so-called xBase products. Many of these were technically stronger than dBase, but could not push it aside in the market. This changed with the poor reception of dBase IV, whose design and stability were so lacking that many users switched to other products. In the early 1990s, xBase products constituted the leading database platform for implementing business applications. The size and impact of the xBase market did not go unnoticed, and within one year, the three top xBase firms were acquired by larger software companies: Borland purchased Ashton-Tate Microsoft bought Fox Software Computer Associates acquired Nantucket By the opening decade of the 21st century, most of the original xBase products had faded from prominence and many had disappeared entirely. Products known as dBase still exist, owned by dBase LLC.

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Harbour (programming language)

Harbour is a computer programming language, primarily used to create database/business programs. It is a modernized, open source and cross-platform version of the older Clipper system, which in turn developed from the dBase database market of the 1980s and 1990s. Harbour code using the same databases can be compiled under a wide variety of platforms, including Microsoft Windows, Linux, Unix variants, several BSD descendants, Mac OS X, MINIX 3, Windows CE, Pocket PC, Symbian, iOS, Android, QNX, VxWorks, OS/2 (including eComStation and ArcaOS), BeOS/Haiku, AIX and MS-DOS.

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Clipper is an xBase compiler that implements a variant of the xBase computer programming language. It is used to create or extend software programs that originally operated primarily under MS-DOS. Although it is a powerful general-purpose programming language, it was primarily used to create database/business programs. One major dBase feature not implemented in Clipper is the dot-prompt (. prompt) interactive command set, which was an important part of the original dBase implementation.

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