Nantucket Corporation A Timeline

In the DOS years, behind countless shop counters, a beige computer with a green screen kept the stock, raised the invoices and remembered the customers. A great many of those programs were built with one tool: Clipper, from a small company in Culver City called Nantucket Corporation.

This video follows Nantucket in order, with every date and figure on screen. How dBase, born from a NASA laboratory program, ruled PC databases, and why every customer had to buy dBase, or a runtime copy, to run a dBase program. How Nantucket was founded in 1984, and the tale of the restaurant napkin behind its names. How Clipper Winter '84, shipped on 25 May 1985, turned dBase programs into single stand-alone files, and how the seasons releases ran to Summer '87.

Then Ashton-Tate's fall: dBase IV in October 1988, the lawsuit against Fox, Judge Hatter's ruling of 11 December 1990 and its withdrawal in April 1991, and Borland's purchase of Ashton-Tate in October 1991. Clipper 5.0 in September 1990, and the Windows problem: Windows 3.0 on 22 May 1990, and Nantucket's Windows project, code-named Aspen. Clipper in the Soviet Union, from the New York Times of 3 November 1991.

The sale to Computer Associates in May 1992, and what the price really was. CA-Clipper 5.2 to 5.3b, the last, on 20 May 1997; CA-Visual Objects in 1995. And the afterlife: Harbour (1999), xHarbour and X#, and Harbour 3.2.0, released on 7 July 2026.

One item could not be read at its source: the Wall Street Journal report of 7 May 1992, cited by Wikipedia for an estimated sale price. The video says so.

Educational documentary. Not financial or investment advice.