Video Rental Store Control System developed in Clipper for MS-DOS

I learned how to program (in BASIC) when I was 12 years old, but I only considered myself a "programmer" when I was 16, back in 1986, when my father helped me to get a summer internship at a "software house" and there I learned how to program real business systems with DBASE II (Apple II) and DBASE III+ (IBM-PC). After that experience I developed my very first commercial program, a system for a "Video Club" that one of my father's friend had. It was in DBASE II, and to call that a system, is not actually accurate, I just created a couple of databases (DBF Files) so he could control the Customers and the VHS library using his Apple II clone.

I kept learning more about DBase III+ and a few years later I discovered the Nantucket Clipper, a compiler for DBase, that not only protected my source code, but also made the programs to run way faster!

So in 1990 I decided to develop a real system for Video Rental Stores, as a natural continuation of my original project. I had no client, as that "video club" was not in business anymore, so my plan was to finish it and offer to some of the many VHS rental stores around the city. It never happened, Camera 3 was developed in my free time for 3 years but was never ended or sold. Anyway, I learned a lot developing it!

This repository has the system source code under the PRG folder and under the LIB folder you will find my custom libraries, that you can use to build it using Clipper 5.3.

To edit the source code, I recommend using NotePad++ selecting the Encoding Western European->OEM 860 - Portuguese.

The BIN folder contains the compiled system with sample databases, I commented some rudimentary "copy protection" code before building it, so it runs on DOSBOX without any special configuration. The default passwords are MASTER and ACESSO.

You can also see some screen shots and system reports under the Images folder.

• My website is https://lvcabral.com
• My twitter is @lvcabral
• My podcast is PODebug Podcast
• Check my other GitHub repositories

Copyright (C) Marcelo Lv Cabral. All rights reserved.

Licensed under MIT License.