Structure or metaphor used in info management software

Posted by tsahar
Mar 15, 2017 at 07:04 AM

Jeffery Smith wrote:
Not sure how far back you are indicating. I found Leading Edge Nutshell
>to be pretty much a file card metaphor. and the MSDOS version of askSam
>allowed making fields on a template using field names and brackets. Both
>had the advantage of not being limited to 254 characters per field.

I don’t know about Leading Edge Nutshell but according to Wikipedia, it later evolved into FileMaker which was a relational database software. Have used askSam which was a wonderful free-form database. As far as I know, one of the earliest card-based software was called NoteCards [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoteCards ], but I am sure that there must be other contenders.

Please note that I am not primarily interested in the history of IM software per se. I am more interested in learning more about the *typology* of IM software on the basis of its structure/metaphor/model.