>The story is that "something"-Tate sounded better than "Tate". It was purely made up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashton-Tate

That's funny. And I did notice that there actually was a pet called "Ashton" involved -- albeit a parrot rather than a dog, and named Ashton after the company was already up and running.


>
>>Oh, boy. I stand corrected.
>>
>>So, who the hell was Ashton? And if he/she was a nobody, why was his/her name on the package? Hmm, could've been Tate's dog, I guess...
>>
>>Did Wayne Ratliff also work on the original dBase (or was it Vulcan) code at the Pasadena JPL?
>
>Yes, Vulcan got its start at JPL