[RBASE-L] - Re: Wayne Erickson mentioned in article

[J. Stephen Wills]

If I recall correctly, 15 years ago was around the time that M'rim had that natural language interface for generating queries.  Back then - ain't it weird how I/T makes things seem so long ago - this was quite the innovation.  Of course, based on what you indicate is discussed in the article, it's still quite the innovation (to be).   Alas, I can't even recall the name of the product, although I still have the 5.25" floppy disks, the documentation, and perhaps even the box ...  I'm sure that BillD or Wayne or some other "old-timer" can provide the product name.   My $0.02, Steve in Memphis ----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: RBASE-L Mailing List Sent: Monday, June 14, 2004 8:27 AM Subject: [RBASE-L] - Wayne Erickson mentioned in article In the May 31 issue of eWeek, the weekly column by Peter Coffee is "When databases think".  He talks about innovatons in an upcoming database release that are "aimed at life sciences' needs" (like genetic mapping, etc.).  He talks about wishing you could walk into a hardware store, wave your broken plumbing part in front of a terminal, have it diagnose the problem and tell you what aisle it's in.  Anyway, he says:  "I remember a conversation I had about 15 years ago with Wayne Erickson of Microrim, an early pioneer in putting relational database power on desktops with R:base.  Erickson talked about the challenge of searching for data that can't be described with numbers or text."   Another quote: "Erickson noted during our conversation, for example, the difference between the requests "Show me that graph I saw last month of projected business growth rates" and "Show me that graph with the red and blue lines on it."  Karen