#Superbase futures?
17 messages in this thread
<continuing>
4. Network support has been mentioned for SBPro 4. Can you be a little
more specific about its capabilities? What do I need to know to recommend
Superbase for the office? What else can it be used with (its unlikely I
could recommend it as *THE* solution, but I might be able to recommend it
as *one of the* solutions)?
5. How about Superplan support? Will it get a better Amiga interface?
For instance, loading a file (/ls) could use one of the many Amiga file
requesters rather than hiding the spreadsheet and showing a two column
list. Speaking of loading a file, I recently added a new set of
spreadsheets to my directory, but they don't show up in the list (yet they
load if the name is entered).
6. How is Superbase and Superplan *officially* supported? Is the
Compuserve Amigavendor forum an official support arena? What are the other
areas and are they *more* official than the Amigavendor forum? Whatever
happened to the Superbase Journal (I got Volume 1 and that was it)?
These questions are meant to address both specific areas of Superbase and
yet be broad in their implications to the Superbase application developer.
I hope the people from Precision will take the time to develop a complete
answer to them rather than just treating them as technical questions that
only need short answers. I'd rather see something (semi-) official stored
in a library here to help myself and future users of Superbase understand
Precision's product direction. After 3+ years as a Superbase owner
(Personal, then Professional) and still feeling reluctant to *really* use
it, I think I've been very patient in waiting for Superbase to really
support the Amiga.
David Masterson
The network support will support the Commodore 2065 (?) Ethernet board,
and I'm not sure what else. You will be able to hook an Amiga running SB to
a network of PCs running Windows and SB and no one will know which one you
are using. They will "look" exactly the same.
I'm not sure about what's going on with Superplan. I have already been
planning to talk to development as soon as everything calms down (we are
currently upgrading the PC and the Amiga products, so they are swamped).
Hopefully, I'll know something about it in about a month or so. About the
new file problem, are they .spp files? Otherwise I don't think they will
show.
Official support consists of 90 days free tech support via phone and
Extended support (which costs), CIS and PLink forums, you can fax or mail
us. Superbase Journal is another thing which has been put on hold until
everything calms down.
Hopefully this answers your questions.
Sincerely, Darin Arrick Precision Technical Support
Good, very good. I hope no one thought I was too harsh or anything, I was
just trying to make a forceful statement in the hopes that it would sink in
more. A couple of questions:
1. When is SBPro 4 for the Amiga due out?
2. What will the upgrade policy be for us SBPro 3 owners (will it be
expensive)?
And now a *big* suggestion:
Use the libraries here (somewhere) on Compuserve more to provide
permanent information about your product(s) to your customers.
This could be announcements, product spec sheets, examples of use, or just
basic ideas on what the product was and was not meant to do. This is
especially important to someone like me who doesn't check in to this system
all that often.
David
I'm not sure what the release date for SBPro 4 is. It's in beta testing
right now.
The policy for upgrading has not been finalized yet. That info will be
posted when it is available.
What is the process of becomming a beta-tester for Precision software?
I currently work with Superbase IV for Windows, and am operating on a 5
user lan version. I have the approval for the purchase of your developers
kit ($500) as soon as I get some hard copy regarding what I'm getting. I'd
very much like to be able to use Superbase on my Amiga, and will be getting
your Amiga version as soon as it is released. I have written for an Amiga
based magazine, and am very familiar with Superbase.
Joe Kuzma
Count me as a customer for any SQL frontend version you put out. If you
need to know which engines to support, we use Oracle and Ingres. Rob.
I second the opinion of Dave's —
—> Use the Libs more!
I may sound like we are all ganging up on you, but we have seen support
in this forum run Hot and Cold – usuallly very cold. Youz guys have been
a vendor in this forum for how many years now? 3 – 4? And how many files
do you have in your libraries, how many examples, how many text files to
answer some of the more commonly asked questions?
About Appendix J (or is it K), like John said, why not just admitt that
many users don't have this page in their manuals and type the thing up and
upload it here to the Libs. I mean, after all, thats what they are for.
– Mean while still waiting for help with my transation.
– Roy Pahnke – 1.800.76.AMIGA
– Crazy Mountain Software – Casper Wyomin'
Some examples are coming soon, hopefully. I have some I've done for SBPro
4, and I'll convert them to SBPro 3. Like ARexx examples.
As for the manual appendix, that's only in the second edition. We have 3
editions of the manual. I'll see what I can do.
Thanks Darin –
I look forward to those examples.
You said…
"I have some I've done for SBPro 4, and I'll convert them to SBPro 3."
Which brings up another qu? Will SBpro apps be upwardly compat. with the
new SBpro 4? Will our extensive apps have to be reworked to take advantage
of the new SB.
– Roy Pahnke – 1.800.76.AMIGA
– Crazy Mountain Software – Casper Wyomin'
SBPro apps will be upwardly compatible with SB4. It is recommended that
data files be reorganized to the new (also PC compatible) file format once
it is loaded for optimum performance. It will also read dBase files as
well. Am not certain if Form files will be compatible to PCs, but all else
will be. There will be *no* compatibility from SB4A to SBPro backwardly, so
keep a backup to be sure. Apps will not have to be reworked necessarily,
but it may be advisable in some cases, and certainly so if you wish to take
advantage of new features.
–Duke
Thanks Duke –
I pretty much planned that my app could probably work under SB4, but for
better performance I could probably rewrite some of the code to take
advantage of the new commands provided by the new release.
I am assuming that files can be reorganized simply by opening them and
issueing the "reorganize" command. Or maybe a stand-alone program the with
perform the function so that they can be opened by SBpro4.
– Roy Pahnke – 1.800.76.AMIGA
– Crazy Mountain Software – Casper Wyomin'
SBPro3 DML programs will run on SB4. Forms don't transfer. Data files ,
queries, and updates all transfer, too.
Thanks Darin,
Need we say we are looking forward to SB4's release.
– Roy Pahnke – 1.800.76.AMIGA
– Crazy Mountain Software – Casper Wyomin'
<Responses, cont'd>
4. Network support will *not* be included with the initial SB4A release as
there
is not yet a network available from CBM, which we are committed to
support
as soon as it becomes available. There are apparently some snags in its
release, and so our own network version will be delayed until such time
as
it becomes available.
Once a network version becomes available, it will work essentially the
same
as for SB4W, which is as follows: you install the single-user version,
and
'bump
'bump' the number of users up in increments of 5 (i.e, 1 to 6 to 11 and
so on),
The bumps, or Network Extensions, provide full fiile and record locking
as well
as other features which are important to network operation such as
Enforced
Data Consistency in Queries, Auto Screen Refresh, etc. There is no
practical
upper limit to the number of supported users, with the theoretical
maximum
being 32,000 users… if you could find a network that supported that
many!
Furthermore, the user count of these 'bumps' will also increment or be
incremented by the PC versions as well. What this means is that if you
installed 6 users on the Amiga, followed by 6 users on the PC, a total
of
12 people will be able to access files simultaneously on the network
(the
two versions are now fully file-compatible except perhaps for forms, if
you
didn't already know).
5. Superplan is not anticipated to see an update or upgrade during the next
few
months at least. Further details will be made available when they are
finalized.
Question 6 will be answered in the next reply.
–Duke Lane
Dir, Mktg & Comms
Precision Software
<Responses, cont'd>
6. Superbase is 'officially' supported in many ways, including telephone,
fax,
mail, email, People/Link and CompuServe. The Amigavendor forum is
presently
the primary area of support for SB Amiga, although we are now
considering
the possibility of merging this and our PC forum together into one GO
SUPERBASE forum. The final decision on this has not yet been made, and
will
not in any case be completed much before May of this year.
The Superbase Journal had a second edition (Vol 1, No. 2), which we
will
happily provide you on request via EZPlex. It has been discontinued due
to
time and personnel restraints, but will possibly by revived by any
number of
outside companies which have expressed an interest in doing so. No dates
for
publication have been determined at this point. More info when it
becomes
available.
All things considered, I think you will have to agree that there is no more
'professional' database available for the Amiga than SB, no matter what its
or our other shortcomings may be. The upcoming version will underscore
this, to be sure, even if only by the fact that it is based upon code which
is more than merely 'satisfactory' for a number of Fortune 1000-sized
corporations around the world, who it must be said, have access to
'professional' databases by the score. We can provide a partial customer
list of our larger installations (100+ users per site) on request.
For my own curiosity, is it more important that SB support the Amiga, or
that it has an appropriate feature set as would be expected in any
professional-level database product? This is not to downplay the importance
of supporting an operating environment, but I am curious as to how this
relates to your comment that you have been 'very patient in waiting for
Superbase to really support the Amiga,' while you have nevertheless been
'reluctant to *really* use' it. I would also be curious as to your reaction
to the next release when it's out (end of March/early April)….
–Duke Lane
Dir, Mktg & Comms
Precision Software
Good questions and worthy of reply…
I bought Superbase Personal about the same time I bought my Amiga 2000 (>3
years ago). I've worked as a database applications developer with a few
companies, so I wanted to see what the capabilities of the only real
database product for the Amiga at that time. It was mostly a whim to keep
me in touch with database technology.
I found that comparing Superbase (and later Superbase Pro) with things like
Oracle and Ingres on minis and mainframes just didn't work for me.
Superbase was designed to be more intuitive and (believe it or not) that
tended to work against me. Ingres (for instance) "felt" more relational
because of things like SQL support, multi-field keys (which affects
database design), embedded SQL/C interface, etc. Superbase Pro was not
really lacking or anything, it was just different. This tended to make me
reluctant to explore its capabilities and, as I wasn't getting paid to use
it, I just kind of let it slip.
Nevertheless, I had a few ideas for things that I wanted to do with
Superbase, so I kept my eye out for tools and examples that I could use to
make this easy. For a long time, support for Superbase on the Amiga was
difficult to find (OSIN via long distance was too costly). Again, I wasn't
looking to do any professional development with Superbase, so expensive
methods of learning it were out. Compuserve, however, had many useful
forums and information that I checked, so picking up Precision information
from some forum was little problem. Not much information showed up, though,
until recently.
Now, my interest in Superbase is in using it as both an application
development environment and as a data server for other programs. On the
one side, I want to use Superbase and Superplan to develop a home
accounting and finance management environment. I also want to use SBPro as
an Arexx back-end for IntroCAD Plus for a pseudo-CASE environment.
As I get more time, I'll post more.
Cheers,
David
Good luck in your projects and ask me for help if you need it.