Dialog was originally developed
at Lockheed Lockheed Missiles & Space Company in Sunnyvale,
CA. The database utility was the result of the desire to access
individual online databases via a single search (query) interface.
Individual databases were converted to a single format to make
unifed searching possible.
The first databases in Dialog in
1972 were the government's ERIC (Educational Resources Information
Center. File number 1) and NTIS (National Technical Information
Service) databases.
In 1981 tLockheed formed Dialog
Information Services, Inc., as a wholly-owned subsidiary.
In 1988 Knight-Ridder, which owns
numerous newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury News),
purchased Dialog from Lockheed.
In 1998, Knight-Ridder sold
Dialog to M.A.I.D., a United Kingdom vendor of online database
services.
In 2000, publishing giant
Thompson acquired Dialog.
Other
Dialog also has sister database
services, particularly DataStar, a Euro-centric database utility
hosted in Europe.
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optimized for Netscape & 800x600
display