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== History ==
PowerHouse was introduced in 1982 and bundled together in a single product Quiz and Quick/QDesign, both of which had been previously available separately, with a new batch processor QTP. In 1983, Quasar changed its name to ''[[Cognos]] Corporation'' and began porting their application development tools to other platforms, notably [[Digital Equipment Corporation]]'s ''[[VAX]]'', [[Data General]]'s ''[[Eclipse MV]]'', and [[IBM]]'s ''[[AS/400]]'', along with the [[UNIX]] platforms from these vendors. Cognos also began extending their product line with add-ons to PowerHouse (for example, ''Architect'') and end-user applications written in PowerHouse (for example, ''MultiView''). {{
▲PowerHouse was introduced in 1982 and bundled together in a single product Quiz and Quick/QDesign, both of which had been previously available separately, with a new batch processor QTP. In 1983, Quasar changed its name to ''[[Cognos]] Corporation'' and began porting their application development tools to other platforms, notably [[Digital Equipment Corporation]]'s ''[[VAX]]'', [[Data General]]'s ''[[Eclipse MV]]'', and [[IBM]]'s ''[[AS/400]]'', along with the [[UNIX]] platforms from these vendors. Cognos also began extending their product line with add-ons to PowerHouse (for example, ''Architect'') and end-user applications written in PowerHouse (for example, ''MultiView''). {{Fact|date=February 2007}} Subsequent development of the product added support for platform-specific relational databases, such as HP's ''Allbase/SQL'', DEC's ''[[Oracle_Rdb | Rdb]]'', and [[Microsoft]]'s ''[[ Microsoft_SQL_Server | SQL Server]]'', as well as cross-platform relational databases such as [[Oracle_Database | Oracle]], [[Sybase_SQL_Server | Sybase]], and [[IBM]]'s [[IBM_DB2 | DB2]].
The PowerHouse language represented a considerable achievement.{{Says who|date=March 2011}} Compared with languages like [[COBOL]], [[Pascal programming language|Pascal]] and [[PL/1]], PowerHouse substantially cut the amount of labour required to produce useful applications on its chosen platforms. It achieved this through the use of a central data-dictionary, a compiled file that extended the attributes of data fields natively available in the DBMS with frequently used programming idioms such as:
Line 16 ⟶ 15:
* help and message strings
* range and pattern checks
* help and information texts.
In order to support the data dictionary, PowerHouse was tightly coupled to the underlying database management system and/or file system on each of the target platforms. In the case of the HP3000 this was the ''[[TurboIMAGE | IMAGE]]'' shallow-network DBMS and ''KSAM'' indexed file system, and the entire PowerHouse language reflected its origins.
Once described in the data dictionary, there was no further need to describe the attributes through any of the applications unless there was a need to change them on the fly, for example, to change the size of an item to make it fit within the constraints of a defined item.
Simple QUICK screens could be generated in as few as four lines of source code:
SCREEN <screenname>
FILE <filename>
Line 54 ⟶ 53:
Given the right access and commands, a novice could write simple report programs. Just as dangerous, though, the same novice could easily destroy the data as there was no security to whether one can call up any of the interpreters. If you had access to QUIZ, you also had access to QTP and QUICK.
Like all [[virtual machine]] languages, PowerHouse is CPU intensive.{{
== Migration to the PC ==
Cognos initially attempted to move to the [[Intel]] platform in 1988 with the [[DOS]]-based ''PowerHouse PC''. While the product was used by numerous partners to build bespoke applications for small to medium sized customers it was not entirely unsuccessful at that time. However, Cognos eventually produced Axiant (c.1995), which ported PowerHouse-like syntax to an Intel-based [[Microsoft Windows]] visual development environment and linked it to [[SQL]] aware [[DBMS]] running on these machines. The radical changes wrought by the PC revolution, which began just at the time ''PowerHouse'' was introduced, eventually brought down the cost of host computers to such an extent that high-priced software development tools such as PowerHouse became unattractive to customers.{{
▲Cognos initially attempted to move to the [[Intel]] platform in 1988 with the [[DOS]]-based ''PowerHouse PC''. While the product was used by numerous partners to build bespoke applications for small to medium sized customers it was not entirely unsuccessful at that time. However, Cognos eventually produced Axiant (c.1995), which ported PowerHouse-like syntax to an Intel-based [[Microsoft Windows]] visual development environment and linked it to [[SQL]] aware [[DBMS]] running on these machines. The radical changes wrought by the PC revolution, which began just at the time ''PowerHouse'' was introduced, eventually brought down the cost of host computers to such an extent that high-priced software development tools such as PowerHouse became unattractive to customers.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
==PowerHouse in the 21st Century==
Although ''PowerHouse'' is still available and continues to receive occasional minor functional and platform conformance updates, by 1999 ''Cognos'' had all but ceased major development of ''PowerHouse'' on mid-range computers in favour of newer product lines. Around 1999 ''PowerHouse Web'' was released in order to support the development of [[World Wide Web|web-aware]] applications.{{
Cognos was acquired by IBM on January 30, 2008, and continues to support the PowerHouse line of products.
==External links==
* [http://www.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/powerhouse/ IBM Cognos Application Development Tools home page]
* [http://www.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/powerhouse/support/ IBM Cognos Application Development Tools support home page]
[[Category:Minicomputers]]
[[Category:Hewlett-Packard products|PowerHouse]]
[[Category:4GL]]
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