FilePro
filePro is a proprietary DBMS and RAD system originally developed by Howard Wolowitz as The Electric File Clerk in 1978. He licensed it to Tandy Corporation in 1979 who first published it in 1980 as Profile II.
Although there was a Profile for the TRS-80 model I, model III and model IV, these were unrelated programs. Today's filePro started out on the Model II and was first released by Tandy as "Profile II". After passing through several owners, the code is currently the property of fPTechnologies, Inc.
Current status
The product no longer ships with a printed user manual; however, there is a manual available online at fpTech's website as well as a single third-party full reference book available, written by the late Stuart Werner of STN along with a single third-party quick-reference guide written by Laura Brody and Ken Brody "Laura's filePro Quick Reference Guide for v5.0, ". Laura and Ken Brody also published 5 issues of the "filePro Developer's Journal"There are several filePro resources available online including a user maintained mailing list—for more information, visit http://lists.celestial.com/mailman/listinfo/filepro-list
History
; 1978 : Howard Wolowitz develops Electric File Clerk for the TRS-80 Model II.; 1979 : The small Computer Company is founded.
; 1980 : Tandy Corporation publishes it as Profile II.
; ???? : Profile II Plus is released.
; 1983 : Profile 16 is released for the TRS-80 Model 16 running Xenix.
; ???? : Profile 16 Plus is released.
; ???? : filePro 16 and filePro 16 Plus are released by The small Computer Company for non-Tandy computers.
; 1986 : Version 3.0 released for both filePro 16 and filePro 16 Plus. This was the last version for the non-Plus filePro 16. Further versions also dropped the 16 part of the name.
; ???? : filePro Plus Version 4.0 released.
; ???? : The small Computer Company is bought by another company, and becomes a subsidiary of that company. Over the next years, the parent company itself changes hands several times.
; ???? : Version 4.5 released.
; ???? : Version 4.8 released.
; 1998 : fPTechnologies, Inc. is founded by the filePro employees, and buys the rights to filePro.
; ???? : Version 5.0 released.
; 2006 : Version 5.6 released.
; 2009 : Reorganized and renamed fP Technologies of Ohio, Inc.
Database Features
Strengths
- Fast data lookups
- Short learning curve.
- Data entry system allows for quick familiarity with keyboard shortcuts, and as such, typists do not have to rely on mouse acquisition
- Provides version updates and bug releases for operating systems for more than a decade
- Ability to create PDF outputs and reports automatically.
- Excellent for performing data imports and data manipulation.
- Able to connect to MySQL and utilize the power of filePro to read / write / report data from MySQL data.
- Dual write capabilities.
- Data Encryption at field and table level.
- Multi Platform - applications created on one operating system can be converted to other platforms easily., SCO Openserver Unix/Unixware, Linux, Sun, HP-UX, IBM AIX, IBM eServer iSeries Linux and FreeBSD )
- 26 Available Automatic Indexes with 10 Demand Index options
- Mathematical Precision - 16 Places to left. 8 places to right of decimal.
Weaknesses
- fP SQL support is read-only
- Only supports 24 lines of 80 characters
- Maximum print width of 255 characters per line