And you'll notice that while Directory() and set("directory") are in the product, they are not in the helpfile -- despite my mentioning this in at least 2 betas. I got a side-answer finally: this was an Ashton-Tate addition to the product. I don't know if that's correct, but that's what I was told.

Hank

>>>>>>
>>>>>>A heathen and a commie, don't forget ;-) (If anyone doesn't know I'm joking, I am).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>To me the decision was always just business. They didn't hate FoxPro and in fact kept it alive for about 15 years. I doubt Fox Software could have managed a Windows version that looked just as polished as any other Windows development tool. As another luminary, Ken Levy, said, the sales and the revenue just weren't there. If anything they kept it going longer than they should have. I have absolutely no quarrel with MS's stewardship of FoxPro.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>What I was told was a major reason that microsoft purchased fox, was for Rushmore technology. The Ashton Tate lawsuit against Fox had such a great outcome for the Fox development community. What do you mean that dBase was in the public domain?
>>>>>
>>>>>Ashton Tate was such a pain! When microsoft took over the fox, they did put effort into improving it. They had some outstanding help too. However, when microsoft introduced the term “evangelist” into their vocabulary, things changed.
>>>>>
>>>>>The microsoft sales staff in the San Francisco Bay Area told every customer not to use any version of FoxPro. You were instructed to use Basic and later Visual Basic, with SQL Server. I am talking about major companies who had in house programming staffs. These were and are big customers of microsoft. There will always be a product called Basic available from microsoft, as long as Bill Gates is connected to that company. That goes back to the S-100 bus days. SQL Server costs money and brings in revenue. Not every application requires SQL Server or its equivalent.
>>>>>
>>>>>Business is about money. The fox did not generate enough nor have the blessing of Mr. Gates. But it sure is fun to use! :)
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I completely agree with your conclusion. Well, not sure about Bill Gates having a personal animus. I have never met him and he has not written a memoir. Too busy fighting world hunger, I guess. (Applause).
>>>>
>>>>Whoever said dBase was in the public domain, it wasn't me.
>>>
>>>dBase was not in the public domain, but portions were and that was apparently enough to allow others to build a product that uses the same syntax for the same functionality. Ashton was simply not able to stop others, with the help of the law, from doing that.
>>
>>You are not correct in this. It was a copyright issue that went to court. Ashton-Tate asserted that Fox Software had infringed on its copyright. The lawsuit being settled was what cleared the way for Borland to buy Ashton-Tate, and subsequently for Microsoft to buy Fox.
>
>What was the 'settlement' exactly? If Ashton-Tate would've had all copyrights (on ALL language elements) then there would not have been any settlement. In fact dBase contained language elements that were developed at some university. This is what Wikipedia writes:
>
>Origins
>
>In the late 1960s, Fred Thompson at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was using a Tymshare product named RETRIEVE to manage a database of electronic calculators. In 1971 Fred collaborated with Jack Hatfield, a programmer at JPL, to write an enhanced version of RETRIEVE which became the JPLDIS project. JPLDIS was written in FORTRAN on the UNIVAC 1108 mainframe, and was presented publicly in 1973. When Hatfield left JPL in 1974, Jeb Long took over his role.[4]
>
>While working at JPL as a contractor, C. Wayne Ratliff entered the office football pool. He had no interest in the game, but felt he could win the pool by processing the post-game statistics found in the newspapers. In order to process the data, he turned his attention to a database system and, by chance, came across the documentation for JPLDIS. He used this as the basis for a port to PTDOS on his kit-built IMSAI 8080 microcomputer, and called the resulting system Vulcan (after Mr. Spock on Star Trek).[5]