If I had young children I’d read this to them at bedtime tonight.
> On Apr 17, 2017, at 3:04 PM, Peter Jakobsson via 4D_Tech > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Being something of a “4D fossil” myself as one of our more celebrated peers > once put it, I couldn’t help raising an eyebrow at the quietly announced > retirement (see 4D Blog) of an equally entrenched but possibly far more > productive contemporary and felt I couldn’t let this news pass without at > least a minor ceremonial hat tip ;) > > As a bit of historical background, those who joined the community during the > last 15 years are perhaps blissfully unaware of this piece of epic > elastoplast which has held 4D’s cross-platform existence in place for the > best part of a quarter of a century. As such, it only predates Google, > Netscape Navigator, the Pentium Processor, DVDs and Windows 95 for starters. > > But lets go back to 1994 and the pivotal ‘pre-rollout’ of the most advanced > database in the universe at twin 4D Summits in the US and Europe (Lille, > France was the one I attended). Running on Mac, Windows AND UNIX, it > incorporated a virtual machine layer which meant the design team only had to > code for 1 platform. It also ticked just about every wishlist item anyone has > had in the 25 years since and - best of all - it wasn’t even vapourware. I > actually saw LR in front of a Sun Spark workstation run a 10-second > sequential search on 10,000 records which probably represented the modern-day > equivalent of mining a whole bitcoin to yourself in a single day. > > There was only 1 problem. > > Although 4D Universal’s resplendent virtualisation gymnastics would insulate > it from hardware diversity, it wouldn’t insulate it from Mick Jagger who was > about to launch the world’s most widely adopted O/S the following year. Nor > would it mitigate the deafening clamor from impatient 4D users demanding > Windows compliance yesterday - no last month - with full networking support > for IPX/TCP and all known PC hardware and right now with no delay for postage > or other unnecessary hold-ups. > > Handily (or tragically depending on your point of view), something “turned > up”. I vaguely remember a presentation the next year where it was > announced…”we’ve actually stumbled upon a very handy tool that just lets > us….”. > > And so the world’s greatest database was put on ice and a new 25-year quest > engaged known as “Escape from Altura Toolbox” that made an Indiana Jones tale > look like a round of golf. Inexorably entwined with Apple’s own “Escape from > O/S 9” trauma, subsequent abortive attempts at least delivered on symbolism > with working titles such as “Goldfinger” and no-doubt several others that > never even made it off The Laurent’s & Asmae’s dinner napkins. > > That they’ve finally done it is a testament to perseverance of the 4th kind > (and possibly some kind of clever programming too ;) ). > > Congratulations to all concerned ! > ********************************************************************** 4D Internet Users Group (4D iNUG) FAQ: http://lists.4d.com/faqnug.html Archive: http://lists.4d.com/archives.html Options: http://lists.4d.com/mailman/options/4d_tech Unsub: mailto:[email protected] **********************************************************************
