Flat file storage

Pre-1980 —Flat File Storage of Chemical Structures. Computers consisted of mainframe machines (e.g., IBM 3090) and small minicomputers (Digital, Prime). Users connected through low speed serial connections, using "dumb" terminals (no graphics capability) or monochrome vector graphics terminals such as Tektronix and Imlac. Chemical structures were mainly stored as either (l)individ-ual structure files, indexed by name, and handled one or a few structures at a time or (2) in a flat-file database accessed by record number (26). A typical corporate database contained up to a few tens of thousands of structures. 

According to an elegant remark by Davies [5], "Modem scientific data handling is multitechnique, multisystem, and manufacturer-independent, with results being processed remotely from the measuring apparatus. Indeed, data exchange and storage are steps of the utmost importance in the data acquisition pathway. The simplest way to store data is to define some special format (i.e., collection of rules) of a flat file. Naturally, one cannot overestimate the importance of databases, which are the subject of Chapter 5 in this book. Below we discuss three simple, yet efficient, data formats. 

The informatics process requires the integration and analysis of datasets in the public domain as well as from proprietary data sources that represent the intellectual property of the research organization. Public flat-file biology data are often curated and delivered from a number of public ftp sites. This information is released periodically, and any private storage of this information must be kept up to date with the public data as they are released. In addition, these data may be available in a variety of physical formats, such as flat file, Extensible Markup Language (XML), and relational. Software systems must support the ability to keep proprietary information physically separate to facilitate both the periodic update of public data and the integrity and security of private intellectual property. 

Example VIC If a company stored all of their folders in a file cabinet alphabetically, then an employee would be able to find any folder in the file with roughly equal speed (randomly accessible). However, if the folders were stored flat in nonalphabetized order in a box, then the employee would have to sequentially search for the desired folder in the box. These filing systems are analogous to the randomly accessible and sequentially accessible memory storage units. 

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