Tools for Data

Tools for Data 🔗

Database Word Cloud

Using databases to organize data started long before the age of computers. Sumerian clay tablets, ship manifests, card catalogs, and product inventories are all databases. Computers enabled the automation of databases. For computer-based databases, we have to distinguish the database model from the software implementation of that model.

The first database model in the computer era was the Flat File Model, a simple consecutive list of records that mimicked the non-computational model from the past as card catalogs or ship manifests. In the mid-1960s, IBM developed a hierarchical database model for their software solution called IMS (Information Management System), which was debuted in 1968 and supported NASA’s Moon Mission efforts.

Computer History Museum - Databases

The Dawn of the Database as we know it today was initiated in 1970 by Ted Codd, a computer scientist at IBM. A relational database model organized the data in simple tables, making it easier to access, merge, and change. In hindsight, this was the game-changer, and the seed from that grew an entirely new industry. The idea was picked up by academia first (UC Berkley) and enterprises later to release new software products based on the new relational database model. Even IBM started implementing an experimental solution called System R in 1975.

If you want to know the entire history with more details, you can watch it (History of Databases by Computer History Museum) on YouTube in less than six minutes here. A quick structured overview of the History of the Database Evolution is put together in the next unit.