Nantucket Corporation

Nantucket Corporation

Company type	Private
Industry	Software development
Founded	1984
Founder	Barry ReBell, Brian Russell
Fate	Acquired by Computer Associates in 1992
Successor	Computer Associates (CA-Clipper)
Key people	Larry Heimendinger (president)
Products	Clipper (xBase compiler)

Clipper is a xBase compiler that implements a variation of the xBase programming language, primarily designed for developing or enhancing software within DOS platforms. While it is a flexible language, Clipper's predominant use was in crafting database applications for business purposes.

In contrast to dBase, Clipper lacked support for the interactive dot-prompt (. prompt) command interface, which was a distinctive characteristic of the original dBase system.

Initially created by Nantucket Corporation and subsequently acquired by Computer Associates, Clipper originated as a native code compiler tailored for dBase III databases and underwent significant development over time.

History

Nantucket Corporation was established in 1984 by Barry ReBell (management) and Brian Russell (technical), with Larry Heimendinger serving as president. The company developed Clipper, which was later purchased by Computer Associates in 1992 for $190 million, after which the product was renamed CA-Clipper. In 2002, GrafX Software obtained licensing rights from CA to continue marketing and distributing the software.

Clipper was engineered to serve as a replacement for Ashton Tate's dBASE III. Its primary advantage lay in compiling source code into native DOS executables, thereby delivering superior performance compared to the interpreted dBASE code. From 1985 through 1992, millions of Clipper-based applications were produced, largely targeting small businesses focused on customer management and inventory control. Additionally, it found application in banking and insurance industries, especially for smaller-scale systems that did not justify mainframe deployment, occasionally functioning as front-end interfaces to mainframe databases.

Throughout its evolution, Clipper integrated features inspired by C and Pascal, while also adopting object-oriented programming (OOP) concepts along with the introduction of the code-block data type—a hybrid combining macro-style string evaluation and function pointers—to expand its functionality beyond its original scope. Nantucket's Aspen initiative ultimately transformed into CA-Visual Objects, a compiler designed natively for Windows environments.

Market penetration

Nantucket experienced robust sales across Western markets and notably succeeded in encouraging Soviet developers to purchase legitimate software rather than resorting to piracy. By November 1991, approximately 2,000 copies had been sold within the Soviet Union compared to 250,000 units worldwide.

Decline

During the early 1990s under new ownership, Clipper struggled to transition effectively from DOS to Windows platforms, resulting in a significant drop in new commercial development after 1995. The emergence of programmers trained in strongly typed languages contrasted with Clipper’s original loosely typed dBASE-style syntax. VO (Visual Objects), an offshoot of Clipper, introduced optional strong typing to preserve backward compatibility. Major competitors that eventually replaced Clipper included Visual Basic, Microsoft Access, Delphi, and PowerBuilder—all emphasizing strong typing paradigms.

Revival by third-parties

Today, Clipper continues to be supported and enhanced by third-party vendors such as Alaska Software with products like XBase++ and FlagShip, alongside open-source GPL-licensed projects including Harbour and xHarbour. These modern implementations provide cross-platform portability across DOS, Windows, Linux (both 32- and 64-bit), Unix (32- and 64-bit), and macOS systems. They come equipped with advanced runtime libraries and Replaceable Database Drivers (RDD) compatible with widely used database formats such as DBF, DBTNTX, DBFCDX (FoxPro, Apollo, Comix, Advantage Database Server), MachSix, SQL variants, among others. These contemporary versions retain full compatibility with standard dBase/xBase syntax while incorporating object-oriented programming features and target-specific syntax like SQLExecute().

Usenet

The Clipper user base remains engaged through Usenet newsgroups such as comp.lang.clipper and comp.lang.clipper.visual-objects.

An elementary example of a hello world application:

? "Hello World!"

A basic data entry form for a database:

USE Customer SHARED NEW
clear
@  1, 0 SAY "CustNum" GET Customer->CustNum PICT "999999" VALID Customer->CustNum > 0
@  3, 0 SAY "Contact" GET Customer->Contact VALID !empty(Customer->Contact)
@  4, 0 SAY "Address" GET Customer->Address
READ

Version history

Significant Clipper releases and their launch dates are as follows:

Produced by Nantucket Corporation; releases named seasonally and marketed as "dBase compilers":

• Nantucket Clipper Winter'84 – May 25, 1985
• Nantucket Clipper Summer'85 – 1985
• Nantucket Clipper Winter'85 – January 29, 1986
• Nantucket Clipper Autumn'86 – October 31, 1986
• Nantucket Clipper Summer'87 – December 21, 1987

Nantucket Corporation's Clipper 5 series:

• Nantucket Clipper 5.00 – 1990
• Nantucket Clipper 5.01 – April 15, 1991
• Nantucket Clipper 5.01 Rev.129 – March 31, 1992

Computer Associates’ CA-Clipper 5 series:

• CA Clipper 5.01a –
• CA Clipper 5.20 – February 15, 1993
• CA-Clipper 5.2a – March 15, 1993
• CA Clipper 5.2b – June 25, 1993
• CA-Clipper 5.2c – August 6, 1993
• CA Clipper 5.2d – March 25, 1994
• CA-Clipper 5.2e – February 7, 1995
• CA Clipper 5.30 – June 26, 1995
• CA Clipper 5.3a – May 20, 1996
• CA Clipper 5.3b – May 20, 1997

Clipper Tools

After acquiring Nantucket, Computer Associates introduced Clipper Tools, an advanced library designed to extend the standard Clipper functionality. Distributed alongside major versions of Clipper, this toolkit became widely recognized as a standard among various Clipper derivatives like xHarbour and was frequently incorporated or replicated throughout the xBase development ecosystem.

External links

• Free Open Source Graphic, GUI & Form Designer for CA-Clipper
• mini Clipper FAQ
• Printing from Clipper to modern Windows printers
• The Oasis—the largest repository for CA-Clipper and xBase files]
• Harbour Project—a multiplatform Clipper compiler supporting both 32 and 64-bit environments]
• Official CA-Clipper Website