David;

One thing I remember about dBase II, it seemed there was a never ending of update disks and binders that continued to be shipped from Ashton Tate, long after I bought it in January of 1982. Version 2.41 comes to mind - well it has been a while so I could be wrong on that. I loved those 8 inch floppies for my S-100.

When I purchased dBase II, I had to fill out a form stating my CPU (Z80), amount of memory, operation system (CP/M), etc. After a few weeks I received a huge package with the silver binder, software, etc. I attempted to load the program but it would only bomb! I called Ashton tate, and there were two guys in the office at that time, to help customers and God knows what else - perhaps that was the whole company in those days. These two guys checked my order form and said they had no idea how to load dBase II on an S-100, with CP/M, etc., but "when you do it, would you like to be a consultant for Ashton Tate"?

I will not discuss here the old English terms I used with the two gentlemen from Ashton Tate. I did tell them what I thought of them it terms any one who speaks English would understand. It took me about an hour to overcome the problems I had loading dBase II and from there all went well.

Years later, I was working as a consultant for Ashton Tate (didn't everyone - seems that way)and completed my project. This was the period when Ashton Tate had the suit against Fox, etc. They even sued the IEEE, and that is when the term xBase came into being. Being an electronics engineer and member of the IEEE, I thought that Ashton Tate had gone over the edge. Shortly after that Ashton Tate went out of business (God bless), having lost the case against Fox, as the original program which dBase II was based upon was in the public domain.

I like to tell people I worked as a consultant for Ashton Tate, and they went out of business after I left. You can take that anyway you like, but it is funny to me. Borland sent me a very professional letter asking if Ashton Tate owed me any money for the work I had done. We FoxPro developers owe Borland a lot as they were a major force in helping the decision of the judge and allowing Fox to continue without further injury.

Tom