We usually at least recognize old computer hardware and software names. But [Asianmoetry] taught us a new one: Pick OS. This 1960s-era system was sort of a database and sort of an operating system for big iron used by the Army. The request was for an English-like query language, and TRW assigned two guys, Don Nelson and Dick Pick, to the job.
The planned query language would allow for things like “list the title, author, and abstract of every transportation system reference with the principal city ‘Los Angeles’.” This was GIM or generalized information management, and, in a forward-looking choice, it ran in a virtual machine.
TRW made one delivery of GIM, but the program that funded it was in trouble. Since TRW didn’t protect GIM, Dick took his program and formed a business. That business sold the rights to the software to Microdata, a minicomputer company, which used it under the name ENGLISH.
After a lawsuit with Microdata, Pick was able to keep his software, but Microdata retained its rights. Pick dabbled in making hardware, but decided to sell that part of the enterprise and focus on licensing Pick OS.
The first sale was to Honeywell. The virtual machine concept made it easy to port to new machines. Pick had a very IBM-like structured file system, where all data is a string, and dictionaries organize the underlying data.
In addition to a database, there was a programming language like BASIC, a text editor, and even a spreadsheet program. Why haven’t we heard of it? Part of the problem is that the computers using it typically renamed it and didn’t say it was Pick under the hood.
In the early 1980s, Pick’s appearance on the PC and the ability to support ten users on a single PC were notable features. The resellers didn’t appreciate the thrust to sell directly to users, and more lawsuits emerged.
Pick also struggled to get a GUI going when that was taking off. After Dick died, the system sort of coasted through several acquisitions. There are echoes of it in OpenQM, and there’s at least one fork of that on GitHub.
It is amazing how a system can utilize something like this and then become locked in, even after things change. This explains why Japan still uses floppy disks for certain things.
This articles is written by : Fady Askharoun Samy Askharoun
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