FoxPro: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 09:12, 5 March 2016

A dBase II compatible database system for DOS initially shipped as FoxBASE in 1984 and was then one of the first of the xBase products onto the market. Initially wildly popular with dBase developers but remained an English/Dutch language phenomenon since much like the later OnCMD there was no support for international character sets until after Microsoft had taken over product development almost a decade later, which meant that when competitor Clipper shipped in 1985 it basically ate up the international market and a good chunk of the local one.

A multi user version of FoxBASE was shipped in 1985 and later that year the company shipped FoxBASE+ that added a number of new features and dBase III compatibility. However the original FoxBASE continued to be sold side by side with the plus version at the least until 1988. Note that the FoxBASE versions required a paid runtime if you wanted to distribute applications developed using the system.

A version of FoxPro for OS/2 had been developed and shown by the company but was never released even though it appears it was complete as it coincided with the Microsoft takeover of Fox Software. Versions were available for XENIX and SCO UNIX however.

Foreign libraries with Visual FoxPro bindings

LibcURL - Internet URL (WWW, FTP, etc) access - Open Source - Current.

This will probably not work with the WinOS/2 compatible versions.

Text & programmers editors with FoxPro support

Boxer - FoxPro syntax highlighting support built in - Commercial - DOS and OS/2 versions discontinued, Win32 version still sold.
jEdit - Java based - FoxPro syntax highlighting built in - Current.

Versions

DOS

1984: FoxBase Version 1.0

Last known version: 1.21 1987

1985: FoxBase Multi-User

Last known version: 1.21 1987

1986: FoxBase+ - Adds dBase III compatibility.
1986: FoxBase+/LAN
1989: FoxPro Version 1.0
1990: FoxPro 1.01, 1.02 and 1.03
1991: FoxPro Version 2.0 - Introduced FOXDOC, portions rewritten from scratch and much faster
1992: FoxPro 2.5
1994: FoxPro 2.6, FoxPro 2.5a, FoxPro 2.5b

2.5a and 2.5b are the first versions that work with international character sets.
Macintosh

1987: FoxBASE+/Mac
1992: FoxBASE+/Mac v2.01 - last known version.
1993: FoxPro 2.6 for Macintosh
1995: Visual FoxPro 3.0 for Macintosh

UNIX

1987: FoxBASE+ fox SCO Xenix
1993: FoxPro 2.6 for Unix

Windows

1993: FoxPro 2.5
1993: FoxPro 2.5a, FoxPro 2.5b
1994: FoxPro 2.6, FoxPro 2.6a
1995: Visual FoxPro 3.0 - Last version to work with WinOS/2.
1996: Visual FoxPro 5.0
1998: Visual FoxPro 6.0
2001: Visual FoxPro 7 - FOXDOC removed.
2003: Visual FoxPro 8.0
2004: Visual FoxPro 9
2005: VFP9 Service Pack 1

Links

Publications

FoxBASE+ 2.0 pamphlet - From thecomputerarchive.com
FoxBASE+ 2.10 pamphlet - From thecomputerarchive.com
FoxBASE+/Mac 1.0 pamphlet - From thecomputerarchive.com

Authors

Dave Fulton
Bill Ferguson
Fox Research (Original publisher)
Fox Software
Microsoft

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
 A version of FoxPro for OS/2 had been developed and shown by the company but was never released even though it appears it was complete as it coincided with the Microsoft takeover of Fox Software. Versions were available for [[XENIX]] and [[SCO]] [[UNIX]] however.
+====Foreign libraries with Visual FoxPro bindings====
+* [[LibcURL]] - Internet URL (WWW, FTP, etc) access - Open Source - Current.
+: This will probably not work with the WinOS/2 compatible versions.
 ====Text & programmers editors with FoxPro support====