Excalibur search engine might be also used as a stand-alone
server application. May be, these files belong to that engine...

Though, I don't believe that any accounting system can
be based on Excalibur 'neural network' fuzzy logic...

-Alexey


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Leffler [mailto:jleffler@earthlink.net]
>
> Grubber wrote:
>
> > Google turns up the occasional reference to Excalibur here, so hopefully
> > someone can give me a clue.
> >
> > I got called in to try and salvage the raw data from an accounting
system
> > supposedly running Excalibur on a dying HP9000. It's all historical
info
> > and reports are used infrequently. The accountants telnet in to run
canned
> > reports. The system was acquired as a result of a merger and the
resident
> > techs have no clue beyond knowing how to boot it up. I spent a little
time
> > on it and found apparent data in files with suffix .30, but hit a wall
past
> > that shred of info. There was some legible data in the .30 files, but
most
> > was unreadable, so I can't just parse it out.
> >
> > Now you know as much as anyone.
> >
> > If anyone is familiar with this beast, can you give me a basic rundown
on
> > how these things are configured or point me towards the location of some
> > documentation? Even better, if you could give me a clue on how to go
about
> > exporting/migrating, I will think warm thoughts about you all week.
>
>
> The Excalibur text search datablade that is occasionally mentioned in
> comp.databases.informix is unrelated to any accounting system using
> the same name. The Excalibur datablade does not use external files
> with the ".30" suffix, AFAIK - indeed, I can't think of any Informix
> product that uses that extension. So, unless someone happens to have
> used an Excalibur accounting package as well as Informix databases, I
> regret to say that it is unlikely you'll get much help from this news
> group. It was worth a try - but don't raise your hopes too far.
>
>
> --
> Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h>
> Email: jleffler@earthlink.net, jleffler@us.ibm.com
> Guardian of DBD::Informix v2003.04 -- http://dbi.perl.org/
sending to informix-list

You may want to search for retrieval ware now; ifaik it got renamed.

Superboer.

Alexey Sonkin <alexeis@grandvirtual.com> wrote in message news:<1100731128.0Vmu8s5WVRfY7VJysmRvVQ@teranews>. ..
> Excalibur search engine might be also used as a stand-alone
> server application. May be, these files belong to that engine...
>
> Though, I don't believe that any accounting system can
> be based on Excalibur 'neural network' fuzzy logic...
>
> -Alexey
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jonathan Leffler [mailto:jleffler@earthlink.net]
> >
> > Grubber wrote:
> >
> > > Google turns up the occasional reference to Excalibur here, so hopefully
> > > someone can give me a clue.
> > >
> > > I got called in to try and salvage the raw data from an accounting
> system
> > > supposedly running Excalibur on a dying HP9000. It's all historical
> info
> > > and reports are used infrequently. The accountants telnet in to run
> canned
> > > reports. The system was acquired as a result of a merger and the
> resident
> > > techs have no clue beyond knowing how to boot it up. I spent a little
> time
> > > on it and found apparent data in files with suffix .30, but hit a wall
> past
> > > that shred of info. There was some legible data in the .30 files, but
> most
> > > was unreadable, so I can't just parse it out.
> > >
> > > Now you know as much as anyone.
> > >
> > > If anyone is familiar with this beast, can you give me a basic rundown
> on
> > > how these things are configured or point me towards the location of some
> > > documentation? Even better, if you could give me a clue on how to go
> about
> > > exporting/migrating, I will think warm thoughts about you all week.
> >
> >
> > The Excalibur text search datablade that is occasionally mentioned in
> > comp.databases.informix is unrelated to any accounting system using
> > the same name. The Excalibur datablade does not use external files
> > with the ".30" suffix, AFAIK - indeed, I can't think of any Informix
> > product that uses that extension. So, unless someone happens to have
> > used an Excalibur accounting package as well as Informix databases, I
> > regret to say that it is unlikely you'll get much help from this news
> > group. It was worth a try - but don't raise your hopes too far.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h>
> > Email: jleffler@earthlink.net, jleffler@us.ibm.com
> > Guardian of DBD::Informix v2003.04 -- http://dbi.perl.org/
> sending to informix-list

Back in 2000, Convera Corporation was formed as a result of a merger
between Excalibur Technologies and Intel Interactive Media Services.
Today, the Excalibur website ( http://www.excalib.com ) simply mirrors
the Convera site ( http://www.convera.com ).

RetrievalWare is their most important product, not the company name,
as superboer7@planet.nl wrote in his message. "Convera's
RetrievalWare solutions maximize return on investment in vast stores
of unstructured information by providing highly scalable, fast,
accurate and secure search across more than 200 forms of text, video,
image and audio information, in more than 45 languages," according to
the web site.

Excalibur Technologies specialised in "in high-performance,
search-powered, multimedia content management solutions for
intelligently capturing, indexing, managing, accessing and utilizing
valuable digital content - including text, images and video," and had
partnered with Informix to produce the Excalibur Text Search and
Excalibur Image DataBlades. A datablade is an additional component
which can be added to an Informix Dynamic Server database to enhance
functionality.

The .30 files Grubber mentions are most certainly not related to any
of the datablades, but may be to one of Excalibur's old products, of
which they had several. My suspicion is that Excalibur search was
used to create the canned reports.

Unfortunately, Excalibur was very stingy with the information it would
share about its systems, so you are unlikely to find any information
on how to parse the files. However, there is a possibility you might
get some help from Convera. They seem to have done a good job keeping
on top of their "legacy" apps.

Sorry I have no good news, but at least I can be authoritative in what
I've got.

Sincerely,

Christopher Coleman

President
Kansas City Informix Users Group
www.iiug.org/kciug

Database Analyst
Pharmacy Division
Mediware Information Systems, Inc.