The name 'DB2' seems to have followed the 1980s tradition of what I call 'name bloat', the practice of inflating a moniker in one way or another to make a product look more mature or more elegant. The paragon in my mind was dBASE II from Ashton-Tate. There never was a plain old dBASE. The roman numeral was added from the get-go to make the product seem new and improved. Moreover, there was never an 'Ashton'. That name was invented because, gosh darn it, it sounded good hyphenated with Tate, a real person.
Before DB2 there was precedent for name bloat within IBM. There never was a plain old 'JES'. The product emerged from the cocoon as JES2. There had been a predecessor product called 'HASP', which may or may not have been an acronym for Houston Automatic Spooling Priority, but the name 'J-E-S' was born complete with suffix. Meanwhile there did emerge a 'JES3', but it was not an evolutionary descendant of JES2. Both products have coexisted, albeit uneasily, for decades. We used to imagine a JES5 or JES6 (depending on one's arithmetic proclivity) that would somehow combine the best features of both products, but it's almost certainly DOA. Likewise, the prospects for a 'DB3' are as dim as a distant star. . . . J.O.Skip Robinson Southern California Edison Company Electric Dragon Team Paddler SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager 323-715-0595 Mobile [email protected] [email protected] > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] > On Behalf Of Anne & Lynn Wheeler > Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2016 10:53 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [Bulk] Re: Compile error > > [email protected] (Savor, Thomas , Alpharetta) writes: > > Management System or DBMS in 1983 when IBM >released DB2 on its MVS > > mainframe platform." -- Wikipedia, citing an IBM manual as authority. > > > > All these years, I've have only known of DB2. The name seems to have stuck. > > > > Was there ever a DB1 ?? > > Will there ever be a DB3 ?? > > The original sql/relational implementation was at SJR (bldg. 28 on main plant > site, using modified vm/370 on 370/145), System/R. History/Reunion: > http://www.mcjones.org/System_R/ > wiki > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System_R > and another history > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/20/ibm_system_r_making_relational_ > really_real/ > and > http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~rap/teaching/504/2010/readings/history-of-system- > r.pdf > > The official new DBMS project was EAGLE .... with the corporation focused on > EAGLE it was possible to get System/R out the door as SQL/DS (under the > radar). > > When EAGLE imploded, there was a request about how fast would it take to > port System/R to MVS ... eventually released as DB2 (originally for analytical & > decision support *only*). > > past posts mentioning System/R > http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr > also referenced here > http://www.mcjones.org/System_R/citations.html > > The Birth of SQL > http://www.mcjones.org/System_R/SQL_Reunion_95/sqlr95-The.html > > Some discussion of EAGLE and then DB2 > http://www.mcjones.org/System_R/SQL_Reunion_95/sqlr95-DB2.html > > I periodically reference this post about Jan1992 meeting in Ellison's conference > room > http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13 > > one of the people in the meeting would tell how he was responsible for the > majority of the tech transfer into the Santa Teresa Lab (now silicon valley lab) > for DB2. > > Jim Gray departs for Tandem palming off some number of things on me ... old > email ref: > http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801016 > > Eventually IBM Toronto starts RDBMS for IBM/PC ... implemented in C .. > which is made available on other platforms and is also called DB2 ... even > though it is totally different code base from the mainframe implementation. > > SQL/DS is also eventually renamed DB2 > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_SQL/DS > > -- > virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
