Information Builders released mainframe database application FOCUS in 1975. You can read the whole story on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOCUS.
What does the acronym FOCUS stand for?
Asked
Active
Viewed 2,304 times
0
-
Did you contact the vendor and ask? – Wayne Nov 11 '09 at 01:17
-
Hi Wayne, thank you; that is the obvious next step. FOCUS has its place in the pantheon of early databases; I thought a hoary mainframe veteran might recognize the name. Thanks again for your suggestion. – iokevins Nov 11 '09 at 02:42
-
I followed-up with the vendor and inquired; I will share any reply. – iokevins Nov 11 '09 at 05:38
1 Answers
2
Hmm, from the founder of the company:
"But they gave me something much more valuable, which was the computer time, and they also gave me the computer terminals. So that’s what put me in business. I got a little 1,000 square foot office in New York, and we divvyed up the $9,500 a month, $1,000 went for the rent. I went to a small space specialist. He specialized in under 5,000 feet. He got me this place, and they whitewashed it totally white. I mean lemon’s not going to do a whole lot for you. Today I can still look back on my starting point, that’s true. I was President so I took so much a month, and Peter took, and Marty took, and we had a sector, and we had two programmers part-time who ran the program for American Information Services. We labeled this program FOCUS. I guess it stood for online computer users, but we needed was an acronym that was easy to remember. So we gave it a computer type name, and FOCUS was our term for this non-procedural language. We got started about March 1, 1975. American Can gave us our first check and we set up shop."
iokevins
- 274
- 2
- 18