KCML - A brief history
Kerridge Computer Company sold its first computer system in 1977, this first system was sold into a small vehicle dealership in southern England. The system managed the companies General Accounting and Inventory Control operations and soon after it was modified to handle the movement of both new and used vehicles.
This first system, like the many other systems that were sold soon after, was based on hardware manufactured by Wang Laboratories who were and still are based in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. The CPU was called the 2200 and used an operating system known as BASIC-2. BASIC-2 in its day was a very popular and powerful operating system and programming language. So popular that by the mid-eighties Wang had sold more than 20,000 Wang 2200 CPU's. By this time Kerridge had several hundred installations in the UK with many others in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. During the mid-eighties Kerridge went through a massive growth period, our systems became very popular in the motor trade and very rapidly became popular to other commercial businesses. During this growth period we decided that we needed to offer bigger systems on a wider range of hardware platforms. The Wang 2200 had several hardware imposed restrictions which held back the development of our software.
The beginning
The development of KCML started at the end of 1985. The plan was to provide an environment that preserved the best points of the Wang system, while removing all of its restrictions. The original version was written using the C language on a Motorola 68000 CPU running an early version of XENIX. By writing the language in C meant that the language could be ported to many other UNIX platforms. In fact the first real live installation of Kerridge software was on an IBM 6150 RT running IBM’s version of UNIX known as AIX. This first version was actually called BASIK.
The second generation
During the first few years the language was only used internally by Kerridge but was soon sold to many Wang distributors world-wide. During this period the second generation of the product, which was called KCML, was released. This second generation was considerably more compatible with the Wang system and also had many new features added. This second version was also available on a wider range of platforms, including the Motorola 68020 and 68030, the CCI Power 6 range and soon ports were made to the first IBM RS6000's and Motorola 88000s.
The third generation
The development of the third generation started in 1991, this saw the introduction of a DOS version. Novell and Netbios LAN versions were made available a year later. Even more ports were added to the already large list of supported platforms. During this third generation the Microsoft Windows product really started to get a grip on the PC marketplace. Because of this we wrote a terminal emulator for Windows that allowed both serial and TCP/IP connections to be made to UNIX machines, this was our first step in providing a true client server solution. Soon after a full Windows version of KCML was written to help modernise the large number of DOS KCML users. Also during this third generation came the ability to call Windows routines directly from KCML programs. This was also available to UNIX users who were connected to the UNIX machine with the Kerridge Terminal Emulator.
The fourth generation
With the release of KCML 5 in 1997, KCML became a true Rapid Applications Development (RAD) environment with the addition of a powerful program editor and debugger with a built in forms designer. This latest generation provides developers with everything that is required to develop powerful, modern and portable text and GUI forms applications. The unique client server design with an ultra-thin client makes best use of wide area networks and the Internet.
KCML6 built on this framework adding support for a new KDB7 database and supporting Oracle as a back end database. Programs could now make use of code packaged into multiple libraries. New language structures such as RECORDs and types were added to structure data. Support for technologies such as LDAP, XML and SOAP has been added.
The fifth generation
KCML7 builds on the LIBRARY idea and compiles programs into a faster and more memory efficient bytecode. By compiling programs the KCML7 compiler can catch many common programming errors at compile time. Enhancements to the forms model permit using a web browser to render forms.
The future
It has always been our main commitment to provide a modern up-to-date product for modern day applications developers. As new more modern machines and operating systems are introduced then KCML will be made available for those environments. As new functionality and standards are introduced then we will do our best to make these available to developers.
Who uses KCML today?
KCML is used by more than 80,000 end users world-wide. Kerridge alone has 10-15,000 end users using Kerridge applications software in Europe, the Middle East, the Far East and Africa. There are currently more that 300 re-sellers of KCML around the world who have systems ranging from single user DOS versions to UNIX systems with more than 2000 concurrent users. In most cases, KCML applications are used for ERP, General Accounting and Inventory management and Distribution systems. Other uses include Structural Design and Stress Loading, Surveying and Cartography, Hotel Management systems, Travel Booking and Reservations, Electronic Auction systems, and Farm Management Systems.