Sustainable Software Ltd
Database Curiosities
Sustainable Software maintains the world's only Museum of Database Curiosities.
These exhibits are priceless and therefore we regret, by definition they cannot be for sale.
However we invite you to marvel at these wonders charting the glorious history of database systems.
 The DBA Sorting Hat Once every 4 years at the Olympic Games, in a little recorded ceremony, the ancient Greeks would place this hat over the heads of prospective DBAs. Through a priestly medium drawn from the ORACLE at Delphi, the hat would then announce the RDBMS of the trainee. The Hellenes viewed the different database systems as divinely ordained in a strict hierarchy of worthiness, with the most favoured candidates assigned to DB2. Less fortunate candidates were alloted to inferior databases. The least worthy of all, assigned to M$ SQL Server, were universally regarded with derision and often used as javelin targets. |
 Early Roman SQL It is a little known fact that the precursor of modern day SQL was a Latin dialect Lingua Interrogatia Compositia (LIC). Typically scribes would hand-chisel the LIC onto clay tablets, prior to compilation. Though lacking many modern day refinements, the language was functional and conformed to the ANSI-92 (B.C.) standard. Sadly the last remaining copy of the standard was destroyed during the great fire at the library in Alexandria. One of LIC's greatest drawbacks was that non-native speakers often fell foul of complex grammatical rules - the tablet pictured here failed the syntax check with a LIC0104N error - a subject verb disagreement in the subjunctive group by ... having clause. |
 Ted Codd's Harley Davidson Dr Codd's chopper broke down on the hard shoulder of the information superhighway some years ago. |
 Early Cretan circular logs In earlier days, paper, vellum and papyrus were scarce. Instead records were kept on handy chunks of wood called logs. The name survives to this day, e.g. as ships' logs. Circular logging is increasingly rare these days, which makes this exhibit the more remarkable. Showing some proto-Mycenaean influence, these magnificent circular logs were recovered from the cellar of a taverna near Hora Sfakia. Remarkably the taverna owner had mistaken them for firewood! but the remnants of Cretan B script on the bark are unmistakeable. These artefacts were carbon dated to the late Brass age. |
 Late Sumerian archive logs The cuneiform on these logs is sadly faded but dates the logs to the period of Babylonian ascendancy. Archaeologists surmise that conditions in the fertile crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were particularly conducive to advances in recovery techniques. The sophistication is really quite striking, if you know what to look for. |
 The Curator (DBAosaurus Devoniensis) Though ancient enough to be an exhibit himself, the museum curator is still an active practitioner of the noble art of Database Administration. The picture is a rare sighting of Ashburton's Greatest Living DBA taken at the town's 2013 Carnival. His advice to clients is that there are two things you will never hear a real DBA say: |
