Management of PickWiki.com Transitioned to Zumasys
50 years ago this month, in 1965, the origins of the PICK Operating System stemmed from a real-life application of computer technology: the design of a data management stores system, initially for the tracking of parts for rocket engines within the huge military contractor TRW Systems Inc., and later adopted and funded by the US Army to track the maintenance and repair of Cheyenne helicopters.
The challenge of the project was that the system was to have an English-like retrieval language, a heritage that lives on today in products such as UniVerse, UniData, D3, OpenQM and jBASE.
The system was being developed by Don Nelson and was initially titled Parts Acquisition Data System (PADS). Richard (Dick) Pick, for whom the operating system was named, was hired in 1965 specifically to work with Nelson on the project. In the course of its somewhat complex and colorful evolution, the first spec was called Generalized Information Retrieval Language and System (GIRLS). The Army took over the funding of the project to develop a system to support the Cheyenne helicopter, and dubbed it “Integrated Technical Data System” or ITDS. The software was delivered to the Army in 1969 and implemented on an IBM mainframe. In that year the Army said in a published report that GIM (or ITDS) was “by far the finest generalized information management system in the country.”
>>>>> Read the rest of the story at the recently re-launched PickWiki.com <<<<<
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