IMAGE is a

database management system In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases span ...

(DBMS) developed by

Hewlett Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

and included with the

HP 3000 The HP 3000 series is a family of 16-bit and 32-bit minicomputers from Hewlett-Packard. It was designed to be the first minicomputer with full support for time-sharing in the hardware and the operating system, features that had mostly been limit ...

minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...

. It was the primary reason for that platform's success in the market. It was also sometimes referred to as IMAGE/3000 in its initial release, and later versions were known as TurboIMAGE, and TurboIMAGE/XL after the

PA-RISC PA-RISC is an instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Hewlett-Packard. As the name implies, it is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architecture, where the PA stands for Precision Architecture. The design is also referred to a ...

migration. IMAGE is based on the

network database The network model is a database model conceived as a flexible way of representing objects and their relationships. Its distinguishing feature is that the schema, viewed as a graph in which object types are nodes and relationship types are arcs, ...

model, in contrast to most modern systems which are based on the

relational database A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relatio ...

model. A SQL (Structured Query Language) front-end processor was later added, offering users the ability to run SQL queries on existing databases. This produced IMAGE/SQL, the current name.

Overview

IMAGE consists of several utilities along with an API (referred to as "intrinsics" by the HP documentation): * DBSCHEMA - Compile a source schema layout. The source layout describes the tables (known as SETS) and columns (known as FIELDS). * DBUTIL - Creates and performs maintenance functions on the database. * QUERY - Generalized query tool for accessing any TurboIMAGE database. The following is a sample list of the

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

calls used for application development. These calls are supported by HP's compilers:

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily ...

, FORTRAN,

BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...

, SPL,

PASCAL Pascal, Pascal's or PASCAL may refer to: People and fictional characters * Pascal (given name), including a list of people with the name * Pascal (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name ** Blaise Pascal, Frenc ...

and C. * DBFIND - Locates a record. * DBGET - Retrieves a record. * DBPUT - Adds a record. * DBUPDATE - Updates a record. * DBINFO - Provides information on the structure of the database. * DBOPEN - Opens the database with a specified password to provide access rights to the application.

History

The significant highlights of IMAGE are: * Originally released as IMAGE/3000 around 1972 as a $10,000 option, but later included free as part of the MPE operating system. * Bundled with the HP Precision Architecture Computers as HP ALLBASE for both HP-UX and MPE/XL operating systems. * Several

Fourth-generation programming language A fourth-generation programming language (4GL) is any computer programming language that belongs to a class of languages envisioned as an advancement upon third-generation programming languages (3GL). Each of the programming language generations ...

products (Powerhouse, Transact, Speedware, Protos) became available from third party vendors. * New capabilities were added including the increase of storage capacity and increase of several internal limitations such as the number of SETS allowed in a database. IMAGE/3000 was renamed TurboIMAGE due to these new capabilities. * HP provided a Third Party Interface (TPI) to DISC's OMNIDEX and Bradmark's SUPERDEX products. * HP announced the end of life for the HP3000 which included TurboIMAGE. * Marxmeier released Eloquence which is schema and API compatible with TurboIMAGE and allows TurboIMAGE applications to run on Microsoft Windows and

HP-UX HP-UX (from "Hewlett Packard Unix") is Hewlett Packard Enterprise's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on Unix System V (initially System III) and first released in 1984. Current versions support HPE Integrit ...

. * Stromasys released an HP3000 emulator allowing TurboIMAGE applications to be run on commodity hardware.

External links

* http://www.robelle.com/library/smugbook/image.html
HP Computer Museum 3000 Series II Documentation
- 1976 Image manual PDF * http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/1986-12.pdf - Hewlett-Packard Journal "Data Base Management for HP Precision Architecture Computers" Proprietary database management systems {{Database-software-stub