[dba-Tech] Emerald Bay and Access

Hi Arthur

Couldn't your friend be mixing up Microsoft with Migent as Migent must
have bought Emerald Bay to - as indicated here - be able to sell it back
later to Wayne Ratliff:

  http://www.foxprohistory.org/xbasetoolsother.htm 

I must admit I've never heard of Emerald Bay, while Vulcan rings a tiny
bell.

Interesting note, by the way, on that page about RBase ...

/gustav

>>> artful at rogers.com 02-09-2005 23:32 >>>
For those youngsters in the group, a couple of guys (C. Wayne Ratliff
and
Jeb Long) were the principal architects and developers behind dBASE II
and
beyond. Ratliff left Ashton-Tate after dBASE III, IIRC, and Jeb took
over
and did dBASE IV.) Wayne went on to write a database and language
called
Emerald Bay.
A knowledgeable friend of mine claims that Microsoft purchased the
core
technology to Emerald Bay and rolled it into Access. For several
reasons, I
dispute this claim. First of all, EB was at heart a client-server
system.
Second, lots of Google-searches have yielded not a shred of evidence
supporting this theory. Third, I think that my friend may be confusing
the
acquisition of FoxPro with his alleged acquisition of EB. The FoxPro
Rushmore technology was rolled into Access: this is well-known.
As Jack Web (Dragnet) used to say, "Just the facts, ma'am". My friend
claims
to have seen evidence for his theory by visiting various MDBs and the
Access
executable itself with a hex editor. I haven't used a hex editor since
the
days of DOS, and besides that I have grown old and slow and wouldn't
know
where to begin the search to verify or refute my friend's claim.
I have no axe to grind here. In fact, I think that I was the first
person to
land an interview with Wayne. The cover of that issue of "Data-Based
Advisor" read "Ratliff Talks!" LOL. Hardly up to the standard of
Woodward
and Bernstein, admittedly, but I did get the interview and learned
much
about the early history of dBASE-II and beyond. It would please me if
my
friend were correct, and that Wayne did sell Emerald Bay code to MS,
and
that some of that code lives still in Access.
But for the aforementioned reasons, it just doesn't make sense to me.
So, questions:
1. Does anyone have any info on this purported sale of Emerald Bay code
to
MS, and subsequent use thereof?
2. Can anyone recommend a free hex editor that is Windows-XP compliant?
(I
don't mind buying software, but in this case I have only one use for
it.)
Apologies for the long ramble.
Arthur