Watcom

Last updated
Watcom International Corporation
Industry Computer software
Founded Waterloo, Ontario (1981)
HeadquartersWaterloo, Ontario
Key people
Wes Graham, Ian McPhee, Fred Crigger, Jack Schueler
Products Watcom C/C++ compiler, Watcom SQL, VX-REXX
Website www.openwatcom.com

Watcom International Corporation was a software company, which was founded in 1981 by Wes Graham and Ian McPhee. Founding staff (Fred Crigger, Jack Schueler and McPhee) were formerly members of Professor Graham's Computer Systems Group at the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Watcom produced a variety of tools, including the well-known Watcom C/C++ compiler introduced in 1988.

Contents

The first company started by Graham and McPhee was Structured Computing Systems, incorporated in 1974. Then the software development company, WATCOM Systems Inc, started in 1981 with three full-time employees, but had been incorporated two years earlier as Waterloo Basic Enterprises Limited. In 1984, the various subsidiary companies of The WATCOM Group software organization—marketing and sales, publications, seminars and systems (software development) --  were all renamed as WATCOM companies for consistent branding. These were later all merged into one full-service software company, WATCOM International Inc.

History

Waterloo BASIC programming language was one of the earliest Watcom products and predates the existence of the company. During 1978 to 1979 Waterloo BASIC was developed targeting the IBM Series/1. In 1979 the system was ported to VM/CMS running on the IBM 370, 3030, and 4300 computers and an agreement was reached with IBM to market the compiler. Between 1980 and 1983 updated versions were released including ports to the MVS/TSO and VM/CMS. In addition to Waterloo BASIC some of the other early products included WATCOM APL, WATCOM GKS, WATCOM COBOL, WATCOM FORTRAN (WATFIV and WATFOR-77), WATCOM Pascal and the Waterloo 6809 Assembler. These were the basis and provided with the Commodore SuperPET [ clarification needed ].

In the mid 1980s Watcom developed compilers for the Unisys ICON computers running the QNX operating system. The Watcom C/C++ compiler with QNX developed a market for embedded applications.

In 1988, Watcom released their first C compiler for the IBM PC platform (and compatibles). It was released with a version number of 6 at a time when the latest version numbers of Borland's and Microsoft's C Compilers were version 5. These version numbers signified nothing and were used for marketing purposes. The compiler could create tighter and faster code than its competition. [1]

In 1992, Watcom began a move into the client-server arena with the introduction of Watcom SQL, a SQL database server product. Being a very small company (about 8 developers) they managed to produce high quality software, famous among software developers. Watcom SQL is still in production, now under the name SAP SQL Anywhere.

In 1993, the VX-REXX system was released.

Watcom was acquired by Powersoft in 1994, and Powersoft merged with Sybase in 1995. [2] In May 2000, Sybase spun off their mobile and embedded computing division into its own company, Sybase iAnywhere (formerly iAnywhere Solutions Inc.). Sybase tried to re-target the Watcom compiler into a visual RAD tool, Optima++, but in 2003, because the product competed directly with the Sybase offering PowerBuilder, the product was discontinued. Its sister product, Optima-J, was continued. In 2003, the Watcom C/C++ and Fortran compilers were released as an open source project under a new name, Open Watcom.

Users and reception

Doom , Descent , Magic Carpet , Grand Theft Auto , System Shock , Fast Attack, Atomic Bomberman , Duke Nukem 3D and Fallout are among well known games that were compiled with Watcom C and DOS/4GW. [3]

Novell's Netware386 [4] and Fox Software's FoxPro 2 were compiled with Watcom C/C++.

See also

Related Research Articles

In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems. An application written using ODBC can be ported to other platforms, both on the client and server side, with few changes to the data access code.

This article presents a timeline of events in the history of computer operating systems from 1951 to the current day. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the History of operating systems.

SAP ASE (Adaptive Server Enterprise), originally known as Sybase SQL Server, and also commonly known as Sybase DB or Sybase ASE, is a relational model database server developed by Sybase Corporation, which later became part of SAP SE. ASE was developed for the Unix operating system, and is also available for Microsoft Windows.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VM (operating system)</span> Family of IBM operating systems

VM is a family of IBM virtual machine operating systems used on IBM mainframes System/370, System/390, zSeries, System z and compatible systems, including the Hercules emulator for personal computers.

WATFIV, or WATerloo FORTRAN IV, developed at the University of Waterloo, Canada is an implementation of the Fortran computer programming language. It is the successor of WATFOR.

A DOS extender is a computer software program running under DOS that enables software to run in a protected mode environment even though the host operating system is only capable of operating in real mode.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Watcom C/C++</span>

Watcom C/C++ is an integrated development environment (IDE) product from Watcom International Corporation for the C, C++, and Fortran programming languages. Watcom C/C++ was a commercial product until it was discontinued, then released under the Sybase Open Watcom Public License as Open Watcom C/C++. It features tools for developing and debugging code for DOS, OS/2, and Windows, Linux operating systems, which are based upon x86, IA-32, x86-64 compatible processors.

The Sybase Open Watcom Public Licence is a software license that has been approved by the Open Source Initiative. It is the licence under which the Open Watcom C/C++ compiler is released.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sybase iAnywhere</span>

Sybase iAnywhere, is a subsidiary of Sybase specializing in mobile computing, management and security and enterprise database software. SQL Anywhere, formerly known as SQL Anywhere Studio or Adaptive Server Anywhere (ASA), is the company's flagship relational database management system (RDBMS). SQL Anywhere powers popular applications such as Intuit, Inc.'s QuickBooks, and the devices of 140,000 census workers during the 2010 United States Census. The product's customers include Brinks, Kodak, Pepsi Bottling Group (PBG), MICROS Systems, Inc. and the United States Navy. In August 2008.

Embedded SQL is a method of combining the computing power of a programming language and the database manipulation capabilities of SQL. Embedded SQL statements are SQL statements written inline with the program source code, of the host language. The embedded SQL statements are parsed by an embedded SQL preprocessor and replaced by host-language calls to a code library. The output from the preprocessor is then compiled by the host compiler. This allows programmers to embed SQL statements in programs written in any number of languages such as C/C++, COBOL and Fortran. This differs from SQL-derived programming languages that don't go through discrete preprocessors, such as PL/SQL and T-SQL.

SAP SQL Anywhere is a proprietary relational database management system (RDBMS) product from SAP. SQL Anywhere was known as Sybase SQL Anywhere prior to the acquisition of Sybase by SAP.

The history of IBM mainframe operating systems is significant within the history of mainframe operating systems, because of IBM's long-standing position as the world's largest hardware supplier of mainframe computers. IBM mainframes run operating systems supplied by IBM and by third parties.

Vinzant Software is a privately held company that is based in Hobart, IN. Vinzant Software develops and markets enterprise job scheduling products for platforms including Windows, Unix, Linux, IBM i and MPE/ix. It was founded in 1988 by David Vinzant and has solely focused on job scheduling since 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wes Graham</span> Canadian computer scientist and professor

James Wesley Graham, OC was a Canadian professor of computer science at the University of Waterloo.

Dave Boswell is a Canadian computer scientist who was awarded the J.W. Graham Medal for his contributions to the field in 2003.

Ian McPhee is a Canadian computer scientist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He earned a Bachelor of Mathematics in 1973, and his Masters of Mathematics in 1979.

Terry Stepien is a Canadian computer scientist, and protege of Wes Graham, an influential professor of Computer Science at Stepien's alma mater, the University of Waterloo. Stepien earned a Bachelor of Mathematics in 1981, and his Masters in 1988.

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Windows NT: Remember Microsoft's almost perfect 20-year-old?, Andrew Orlowski, accessed on 19.08.2013
  2. ↑ "Information for Watcom products and services has moved!". watcom.com. 1996. Archived from the original on 1997-10-14.
  3. ↑ History - Open Watcom. OpenWatcom.com wiki.
  4. ↑ Cave, W. Dale (1 March 1995). Developing C++ NLMs. Novell.com Support.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.