Mark Waterbury wrote: >I am searching to see if anyone can find a copy of the IBM >Query-By-Example product that ran under VM/370 circa the >mid-1970s....
IBM Program Number 5796-PKT, Query-By-Example for VM/370 CMS, was/is(*) a priced software product. According to this IBM price list from 1984: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/serviceForConsultants/Service_For_Consultants_198401/198401_04_Software_Prices.pdf IBM charged $373/month for Query-By-Example, and I believe that was a flat price per machine. After adjusting for inflation, that's equivalent to about $907 in 2018 U.S. dollars. I don't know exactly when QBE came to market -- I cannot conveniently search back quite that far -- but I'd guess 1977. Query-By-Example reached End of Service in 1985 (IBM Announcement Letter 284-458) and End of Marketing in 1986 (IBM Announcement Letter 286-150). The last IBM supported VM release for this product was VM/SP Release 3 (per 284-458). Yes, occasionally IBM flips the typical EoS/EoM order, either intentionally or unintentionally. IUP simply means "Installed User Program." In most cases, a customer created the program (software), and it was actually installed and running at a customer location. IBM then negotiated with the customer, paid some sort of consideration, and acquired the rights to market the software to other customers. In some cases, such as this one, the software was installed and running at an IBM Research location and then came to market as an IUP offering. The bottom line is that this product is still a chargeable product and not something you can legally copy, distribute, or run without a license. I haven't found any IBM price announcement or other indication that its legal status has changed. However, there's a lot of published material about Query-By-Example in various conference proceedings, journals, and elsewhere. It represents a rather important milestone in user interface and database development. It wouldn't hurt to contact IBM through an official channel to inquire about obtaining a license. No promises, of course. Try to limit the scope of your license request to something reasonable, I recommend. (*) It's possible there's at least one customer paying the monthly charge to maintain a license. I have no inside information on that point and prefer not to know. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Sipples IT Architect Executive, Industry Solutions, IBM Z & LinuxONE, Multi-Geography E-Mail: sipp...@sg.ibm.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
