You seem to be looking for a flat-file database. You might look for the
very nice database for DOS called PC-FILE, which was published by
ButtonWare ("Jim Button"), who is credited with originating the concept of
shareware. I think Jim has retired, and released the last DOS version of
PC-FILE (version 5) on a royalty-free license. Check out one of the
Simtel shareware archives for a copy.
If your '286 is running at 12 MHz or better, and has over 1 Mb RAM and a
40+ Mb hard drive, you may consider the innovative and efficient NewDeal
Office 98 applications suite. This set of "office" applications, based on
the GEOS operating system of GeoWorks, Inc (www.geoworks.com), is a
graphical OS that provides 32-character filename support, preemptive
multitasking and multithreaded, object-oriented applications. Typical
program files are less than 100 kb in size, because the object-oriented
architecture allows system libraries to be re-used by multiple
applications as they run.
The NewDeal Office suite provides a word processor/desktop publishing
program, vector-draw program, spreadsheet and flat-file "graphical"
database. In addition, the "release 3" version includes a graphical WWW
browser (HTML 2.0 compliant, with some 3.0, no JAVAscript). An additional
software package can provide an email client and IRC chat, as well as an
HTML editor.
I used this package on a 286/12 with 3 Mb RAM and a 20 Mb Hard drive
(compressed with Stacker to about 40 Mb), and found it to be very
satisfying. The operating system is so efficient, that it is the base OS
for the Nokia 9000 digital cellular phone. Versions are available in
English, German and French (I think).
=====
For more information, see the NewDeal web site at
http://www.newdealinc.com
for a newsgroup discussion, see
news://comp.os.geos.misc
There is a downloadable evaluation version at
http://www.newdealinc.com/freen
which has the program manager and word processor.
I am not myself associated with this company, except as a satisfied user.
Daniel Kim
dkim at nmsu.edu
... <jens3 at hotmail.com> wrote:
: Does anybody know which and where to get a database that would work
: for an old 286. It is meant to organise books etc.
