What happened to Ashton-Tate and dBase
Dave Farquhar traces the fall of Ashton-Tate and dBase at The Silicon Underground.
Executive Summary
Dave Farquhar traces the fall of Ashton-Tate and dBase at The Silicon Underground. dBase II dominated CP/M machines, then did the same on the IBM PC, and dBase III made the format the de facto standard for microcomputer databases. Borland bought Ashton-Tate on October 12, 1991 for $439 million. The purchase was already damaged. dBase III had been converted from Z-80 and 8088 assembly into C with a translation program, which left code that was hard to maintain.
Open Silicon & Gate-Level Hardware Inspection
From a silicon and hardware engineering viewpoint: - **Interface Neutrality:** Mitigates dependency on proprietary BSPs, empowering open toolchains to address hardware directly. - **Supply Chain Verification:** Schematics and open pinouts allow deterministic audits against silicon errata. - **Lifecycle Decoupling:** Decouples physical hardware utility from commercial vendor end-of-life obsolescence.
Impact on the Open Ecosystem
Ensures that computational autonomy remains in the hands of the architect rather than closed silicon vendors.