So has anyone heard of a Metropolis databse or an Alpha Micro for that matter?

Great heavenly days! Does that one come back like a blast from the past!!!

I used to work on Alpha Micro machines, about twenty years ago. CP/M based, with eight inch floppies with around 256 Kb on them (yes, I really meant Kb)! Metropolis was one trade name for Vulcan, the predecessor to dBase.

Where on earth did you dig up that bit of history ?!?!

-PatP

It is what several of our offices are using to run a Database on.

I may be, at the start of next year, working on replacing the system with a web based application. Was curious if any one else had heard of the system or had an idea of tough it may be to port all data to more robust DBMS.

Good Times !

It is a bit of "brute force", but the easiest way is to simply transfer the contents of the files using the REPO FORM (report form) command in Metropolis to send them to a serial port... With only the table name, it will do the equivalent of an SQL "SELECT * FROM " command. Since nearly all of the serial printers of those days literally took ASCII and splattered it across the page, this command results in the contents of the data file gushing out the serial port, ready for capture as a text file!

Since very few of these systems had even rudimentary referential integrity or enough raw data to make a significant amount of work by today's standards, it shouldn't be tough to simply plunk the data into files or tables and "start cooking" a web app.

Man, talk about "deja vu all over again"... This brings back all kinds of memories.

Where the heck are these systems? Just FYI, at one time both BCS (the Boston Computer Society) and the Museum of Science and Industry (in Chicago) were looking for systems of that vintage... They may have some significant PR value if you choose to donate them.

-PatP

OMG that is funny.

The one in my lad is an Alpha Micro 2000. I believe we have 4000's in the field (Florida) The program actualy has a few thousand records in it.