Nearly every business or profession requires
some orderly system for storage and retrieval of information. Gone are
the days of mental reckoning: even small, homegrown business today can
profit from efficient data management systems. Certainly one of the most
profitable use for a microcomputer is database management.
A database is nothing more than a set of data which is
organized so that can be used for some purpose. One familiar example of
a database is a telephone directory, a set of data organized so that we
can easily find telephone numbers. Another familiar example is the card
index system at the library. These database serve the large purpose of
making the telephone and library systems useable.
Businesses and other
organizations have their own kind of databases: customer files,
personnel files, inventories, sales records, etc. Schools have students
records, employee files, inventories, attendance reports. All these
databases make it possible to operate a business or organization.
Until the computer era, all
databases were stored on paper in ledgers or filing cabinets. Creating,
changing, storing and retrieving data from these paper databases
required actual physical manipulation. With computer databases,
information is stored as magnetic domains on a disk. Since we can no
longer physically touch the data using a computer, we need a way of
working with it. Our vehicle is a form of computer software a Database
Management System which allows you to manipulate large amount of data
much more easily than you can with paper databases. |
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