This may be an unusual request.

I need help to migrate

from my old DBMS - MSDOS based 16 bit Foxpro for DOS v.2.5 a supported by Microsoft Qbasic 1.1 for Data Entry Operator's Interface running on 8086 from 20 years ago to the more recent P3 and P4

to my recently acquired Dell Alienware Aurora ALX running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit.

My requirements are simple - I do not need sophistications like web publication, networking and servers, multiuser, relational DBMS etc.,

I need only a flat-file DB to create simple data tables, browse, display, edit, append, delete, pack records and fields whose value will be mostly date,
character and numeric with facility for simple querying within the table - no cross-querying - no maths inside the cells, no forms,images,multimedi etc., - data addition etc., happening in very small volumes (number of fields in a record will not exceed 100 and number of records per table less than 200.) and additions about ten records per day -by only one person - me - in only one PC.,

I have lots of Foxpro 2.5a apps to export data from .dbf files to .dat (?CSV)files usable in qbasic 1.1 and data entered in qbasic to be imported into .dbf files of Foxpro.

I need to interface with a Printer (controllable from within the DBMS -like set printer on/off) to print reports generated.

The new software configuration should work seamlessly in my Dell Alienware Aurora ALX running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit and/or an assembled PC with P4running Windows XP Professional - without my having to do lot of recoding of apps/programs.

In summary, I need guidance for selection of a currently available DBMS to effect a simple migration from Foxpro 2.5 a to a newer 32/64 bit DBMS without being an overkill by way of cost, work involved etc.,

I can give more details and even screenshots of my current work (this form has provision for that).

"In summary, I need guidance for selection of a currently available DBMS to effect a simple migration from Foxpro 2.5a"

The primary question which comes to mind, is - Do you want to migrate the applications or just the data?

If the applications then, for the most simple and expedient migration, I'd recommend one of the Visual Foxpro versions (VFP9 would be preferred, but you can look for the older versions on eBay or elsewhere) since the majority of the existing application code and the existing data could be used basically "as is" in the updated VFP language. And they run fine in XP Pro and in Win7 (albeit configured as a 32-bit application).

"I need to interface with a Printer"
In VFP, 'talking' to printers is handled easily through the Windows OS.

Note - in OLD FP report code methodology using @Row,Col SAY <something> this sometimes leads to orientation problems as new printers may have different configurations. However this can be resolved with changing the reporting code methodology (not too difficult).

If you only want to migrate the data for use with some other application(s), then there are a variety of ways to export the data into other formats (e.g. CSV, XLS, TXT, etc.) using the Foxpro COPY TO command and the appropriate options so that the data could be read into other MDBS systems where the applications would have to be re-created from scratch as needed.

Good Luck

Thanq jrbbldr!
Shall revert to you for more help!

I added the following lines to a Foxpro 2.6 Unix (DOS) program to run it on Visual Foxpro version 6.
New lines are marked with # which is not part of the code.
Depending on your screen resolution you may want to adjust the font size; 16 works well with 1024x768.
By setting the font to Courier, the original column row settings remain.
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I voted yes in your poll because I believe in evolution not revolution.