This document provides a brief history of data and databases from ancient record keeping to modern relational database management systems (RDBMS). It describes how early civilizations used pictographs and cuniform symbols to record goods as early as 3100 BC. It then outlines the progression from manual record keeping like card catalogs, to mechanical devices like Jacquard looms and Herman Hollerith's tabulating machine, to early computers using punch cards, to early database systems using hierarchical and network models, to relational databases proposed by Edgar Codd in 1970 and implemented in systems like IBM's System R, Oracle, and SQL Server. The document discusses how relational databases improved data access for many users through standardized querying languages.

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A brief history of data and
databases
Spanning thousands and thousands of years
Unattributed pictures from University of Rochester History Site

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Housekeeping
 HW3 – Grading contract – due before class on Tuesday
 Teams – Tuesday
 Some have indicated that they prefer to work alone. See me if you
feel strongly and come prepared with a reason why.
 Project – A couple of people had ideas for alternate projects.
 Lewis
 Hull
 See me after class

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References for this talk
 University of Rochester History Site
 http://quickbase.intuit.com/articles/timeline-of-database-history
 http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/memory-
storage/8/265/2207 - Video

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Record Keeping – How long?
Source: http://www.ancientscripts.com/cuneiform.html
picture – wikipedia 4th millenium

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Record Keeping – How long?
Source: http://www.ancientscripts.com/cuneiform.html
picture – wikipedia 4th millenium
3100 BC
pictures of
goods and
then cuniform
symbols.

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Why?
 We use records to measure “stuff”.
 And most of these records are not digital.

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Jacquard Loom

8. From ancestry.com (1790 census,
Pittsford, NY)
Marriage book, Rochester, NY, chronological filing of marriage
licenses.

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Other non-electronic records
 SS cards – 35 million hand typed between 1937-1938
 Motor vehicle licenses and registrations
 Financial records for companies
 School records

10. + Card Catalogs – An ingeneous
indexing system

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•It didn’t indicate whether the book was available, just where it should be
found.(example cards)
•Creating the cards required the expertise of librarians.

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Problem – The 1890 census
 Enter Herman Hollerith.

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Hollerith’s device
pantograph Hollerith card
Integrating
machine

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First computers
The program, the data, the JCL – all done with punchcards

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Electronic files – Early computing
1950s – 1970s

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Enter the database – Early 1960s
• Objects in a database can be related to one another.
• Hierarchical – One record leads to the related record. (Like a
tree)
• Network – Allowed for multiple relationships (like a network)
• The databases used pointers to relate one record to another.

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Charles Bachman
Integrated data store – Dow Chemical
CASE products (Computer Aided Engineering)

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Some issues
 While an improvement over file based systems,
 these systems required knowledge of the structures to use
them. No built in search mechanism.
 Very few users understood the structures, access limited to an
elite few.
 Queries were complex. Took time to get new information and
expensive programmer time to produce.

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Enter the relational DBMS
1970, Edgar Codd
Relational DBMS
• Mathematician at IBM
• Based on Relational Calculus and set theory
U of Michigam
• MicroDBMS
IBM
• System R
• First implementation of SQL
Led to
• Oracle
• IBM DB2
•Informix
• Sybase
• MS SQL Server (based on Sybase)

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Relational Ideas
 Data is represented as a series of tables.
 The tables are Related to one another through a series of keys
and foreign keys.
 A standard language is used to define the database (DDL) and
to query the database (DML).
 Tables within the database contain the data about the database
(meta data).

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Why relational?
 It is easy for most people to “see” and “get it”.
 Makes the data accessible for a wider number of users through
user friendly query tools.
 Through good database design, space usage is efficient
(although this has become less of an issue of late).

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Codd’s 12 Rules
 See notes.

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The Future?
• Object Oriented Databases
– Combine data and operations on those data
– Allows for inheritance
– Oracle (Object-Relational Database)
– Postgre(open source object-relational DBMS)
– http://www.postgresql.org/about/
• XML and XML DBMS
– XML designed to transport and store data initially envisioned as
moving data across the web (w3schools.com)
– XML Database Management System manages that data

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Next up – modeling data and
relational DBMS terms
 A few words about data models.
 Activity – Let’s look again at the “ugly” database.