I was putting together an article on TPC-C when one of the authors of the original suite mentioned it was developed for something called RdbStar. I was curious so I had a look in Google and found some mentions of it around 92/93, but all of these were after the project had been cancelled and talked about what they were doing with the corpse having "butchered" the team (their phrase).

From what I have been told, it was a distributed database system that also included a number of other experimental features like a cost-based query interface and other new technologies we now take for granted. But that is all I can find... there's basically nothing about its history.

Does anyone here have any materials on RdBStar from the period when it was being developed? Magazine articles, manuals (I understand it was ready to go) anything at all?

On 2021-10-27 16:40:33 +0000, Maury Markowitz said:

> I was putting together an article on TPC-C when one of the authors of
> the original suite mentioned it was developed for something called
> RdbStar...
> Is anyone here have any materials on RdBStar from the period when it
> was being developed? Magazine articles, manuals (I understand it was
> ready to go) anything at all?

Vishu Krishnamurthy is SVP over at Cortical.io, and would probably
recall RdbStar.

--
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC

On Wednesday, October 27, 2021 at 12:40:35 PM UTC-4, Maury Markowitz wrote:
> I was putting together an article on TPC-C when one of the authors of the original suite mentioned it was developed for something called RdbStar.

I assume that Author was my (Valbonne) buddy Francois Raab?
He 'owns' TPC-C' and was heavily involved with the RDB team back then.
I thought Jim Starkey was involved (of Datatrieve fame for the Digital folks), but not sure anymore.

> Does anyone here have any materials on RdBStar from the period when it was being developed?

I suspect all relevant documents were Digital internal use only at the time.

fwiw,
Hein

I was one of the first people in RdbStar which eventually had about a hundred software
engineers. So I am keenly aware of its history. In point of fact I have a tower of DEC
tape cassettes that have the source code. It's in my office. The last physical remnence
of a project which cost around 130 million dollars. I think I also have a functional spec
of the distributed database query compiler.

After years of growing pains integrating two organizations in Nashua N.H., and Colorado
Springs, we finally got our act together and were about a year from release, but that was when the
fiscal roof collapsed at Digital, and the project was downsized to an integration engine called DBI.

Ping me if you want more information.

On Wednesday, October 27, 2021 at 3:42:46 PM UTC-4, Hein RMS van den Heuvel wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 27, 2021 at 12:40:35 PM UTC-4, Maury Markowitz wrote:
> > I was putting together an article on TPC-C when one of the authors of the original suite mentioned it was developed for something called RdbStar.
> I assume that Author was my (Valbonne) buddy Francois Raab?
> He 'owns' TPC-C' and was heavily involved with the RDB team back then.
> I thought Jim Starkey was involved (of Datatrieve fame for the Digital folks), but not sure anymore.
> > Does anyone here have any materials on RdBStar from the period when it was being developed?
> I suspect all relevant documents were Digital internal use only at the time.
>
> fwiw,
> Hein

On Friday, January 14, 2022 at 8:33:50 PM UTC-5, levin wrote:
> I was one of the first people in RdbStar which eventually had about a hundred software
> engineers. So I am keenly aware of its history. In point of fact I have a tower of DEC
> tape cassettes that have the source code. It's in my office. The last physical remnence
> of a project which cost around 130 million dollars. I think I also have a functional spec
> of the distributed database query compiler.
>
> After years of growing pains integrating two organizations in Nashua N.H., and Colorado
> Springs, we finally got our act together and were about a year from release, but that was when the
> fiscal roof collapsed at Digital, and the project was downsized to an integration engine called DBI.
>
> Ping me if you want more information.
> On Wednesday, October 27, 2021 at 3:42:46 PM UTC-4, Hein RMS van den Heuvel wrote:
> > On Wednesday, October 27, 2021 at 12:40:35 PM UTC-4, Maury Markowitz wrote:
> > > I was putting together an article on TPC-C when one of the authors of the original suite mentioned it was developed for something called RdbStar.
> > I assume that Author was my (Valbonne) buddy Francois Raab?
> > He 'owns' TPC-C' and was heavily involved with the RDB team back then.
> > I thought Jim Starkey was involved (of Datatrieve fame for the Digital folks), but not sure anymore.
> > > Does anyone here have any materials on RdBStar from the period when it was being developed?
> > I suspect all relevant documents were Digital internal use only at the time.
> >
> > fwiw,
> > Hein

On 2022-01-14, levin <robert.c.hanckel@gmail.com> wrote:
> I was one of the first people in RdbStar which eventually had about a hundred software
> engineers. So I am keenly aware of its history. In point of fact I have a tower of DEC
> tape cassettes that have the source code. It's in my office. The last physical remnence
> of a project which cost around 130 million dollars. I think I also have a functional spec
> of the distributed database query compiler.
>
> After years of growing pains integrating two organizations in Nashua N.H., and Colorado
> Springs, we finally got our act together and were about a year from release, but that was when the
> fiscal roof collapsed at Digital, and the project was downsized to an integration engine called DBI.
>
> Ping me if you want more information.
>

If RdbStar had been released as a product, what would have been its
effect on the database market at the time ? From what I can see, it
looks like it would have had some very high-end and leading features
for the time.

Would it have had any permanent effect on the database world of today ?

It seems DEC was good at getting next generation products to the almost
ready to release stage and then killing them at that stage... :-(

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

I was Database Systems Research at that time, actually one of the two founders of the Database Research Munich office. I don't think the financial roof collapsed on DEC, it was rather forcefully collapsed on us by changing the top-level corporate management from engineering-minded to greedy. The termination of RdbStar and sell-off of the database business hit us hard just when we had just won a key European project developing a database infrastructure to support STEP-based design and manufacturing systems.

On Monday, January 17, 2022 at 11:01:39 AM UTC-8, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2022-01-14, levin <robert.c...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I was one of the first people in RdbStar which eventually had about a hundred software
> > engineers. So I am keenly aware of its history. In point of fact I have a tower of DEC
> > tape cassettes that have the source code. It's in my office. The last physical remnence
> > of a project which cost around 130 million dollars. I think I also have a functional spec
> > of the distributed database query compiler.
> >
> > After years of growing pains integrating two organizations in Nashua N.H., and Colorado
> > Springs, we finally got our act together and were about a year from release, but that was when the
> > fiscal roof collapsed at Digital, and the project was downsized to an integration engine called DBI.
> >
> > Ping me if you want more information.
> >
> If RdbStar had been released as a product, what would have been its
> effect on the database market at the time ? From what I can see, it
> looks like it would have had some very high-end and leading features
> for the time.
>
> Would it have had any permanent effect on the database world of today ?
>
> It seems DEC was good at getting next generation products to the almost
> ready to release stage and then killing them at that stage... :-(
>
> Simon.
>
> --
> Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
> Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.