Servers and Clients
One of the more common clients for DAM was HyperCard. The combination of HyperCard and DAL presented a serious challenge to existing vendors who could offer nothing with a GUI. Apple gave a series of demos of HyperCard/DAL, and soon Oracle Corporation purchased a HyperCard-clone, PLUS from Spinnaker Software, to produce Oracle Card.
For much of the 1990s a direct-DAL database server was available on the Macintosh, Butler SQL. However, like any server software on the "classic" Mac OS, Butler was seriously hampered by the Mac's single-user file system and limited multitasking and could never really deliver the sort of performance the same server would have on Windows NT or Unix.
The PrimeBase division of German software developer SNAP Innovation GmbH continues to support DAL in their cross platform SQL database server (originally known as P.INK SQL). Their extended version of DAL is called PrimeBaseTalk (PBT) and is fully backward compatible with DAL. Their architecture does not include Data Access Manager and the resulting performance gains are considerable.
Read more about this topic: Data Access Language
Famous quotes containing the word clients:
“...a lot of my people are models. I like that for them. I admire models, so I think that’s right for my people. ...I love it when I have an important [client]. And the pictures and awards. One of my clients has these television awards—a beautiful statue of a woman. I think it’s an Emmy. People would be lucky to get one. She has two. I think that’s great.”
—Elaine Strong (b. 1934)