Clipper (programming language)

Clipper is a compiler and programming language in the xBase family, developed by Nantucket Corporation and first released in 1985 as Nantucket Clipper. It was built as a compiled alternative to Ashton-Tate's dBASE III, which was interpreted, letting Clipper programs run as standalone DOS executables, though it did not reproduce dBASE's interactive dot prompt command interface. Computer Associates bought Nantucket in 1992 and continued the product as CA-Clipper, with development ending at version 5.3b in 1997. Between the mid-1980s and early 1990s, millions of small business applications for tasks such as client and inventory management were written in Clipper, including systems used in banking and insurance, but the language declined sharply once it failed to make a successful transition from DOS to Windows. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/