Computer Data-Base Organization, 2nd Edition — James Martin | Early Database Systems

A substantial 1977 second edition of James Martin’s Computer Data-Base Organization, an early comprehensive treatment of database architecture published during one of the most important transitional periods in the history of computing.

By the mid-1970s, organizations were rapidly moving away from collections of isolated computer files toward database management systems capable of organizing, relating, retrieving, and updating large bodies of information. Yet the technologies that would later dominate the field were still unsettled. Hierarchical and network databases remained widely used, while the relational model—introduced only a few years earlier—was beginning to reshape thinking about how information should be structured.

Martin’s book captures that moment in unusual detail. Its more than 700 pages examine both the logical and physical organization of databases, including:

• database management systems and data independence
• logical database design
• relational concepts, tuples, keys, and normalization
• second and third normal forms
• data description and manipulation languages
• hierarchical and network database structures
• CODASYL database concepts
• IBM DL/I and hierarchical databases
• VSAM and indexed storage
• inverted files and information retrieval
• physical record and disk organization
• indexing, hashing, and search techniques
• data compaction and storage efficiency
• application-program views of shared databases

The book is particularly interesting today because it documents database computing before SQL and the relational model became the overwhelming commercial standard. Instead, Martin presents a landscape in which multiple competing architectures coexisted, and database designers had to think explicitly about the relationships between application programs, logical data structures, and physical storage.

The illustrated diagrams are themselves artifacts of early systems engineering. They show how programmers and analysts conceptualized data layers, records, storage devices, program specification blocks, schemas, and application interfaces decades before modern graphical database-management tools.

Author James Martin became one of the most prolific and influential writers on business computing and information systems, later becoming closely associated with information engineering, rapid application development, distributed systems, and end-user computing. This volume represents an earlier stage of that work, when the fundamental architecture of large-scale database systems was still being established.

For collectors of computing history, it offers a detailed snapshot of the database world between the mainframe file-processing era and the relational/database-server systems that would define subsequent decades.

Author: James Martin
Publisher: Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Year: 1977
Edition: Second Edition
Series: Prentice-Hall Series in Automatic Computation
Pages: xviii + 713
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0-13-165423-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-13-165423-5
LCCN: 76-52450

Condition: Vintage hardcover without dust jacket. Dark blue boards show shelf wear, rubbing, and substantial adhesive/residue discoloration on the front cover from a previously attached label or similar material. Corners and spine ends show age-related wear. Interior appears clean and securely bound overall with normal age toning. See photos for exact condition.