Software Reviews : Guru,Version 1.00 Staff review Publisher: Micro Data Base Systems Inc.,P.O. Box 248,Lafayette,IN 47902 (telephone: [phone]) Year of Publication: 1985 Materials: Menu User's Guide;Command User's Guide;Reference Manual (2 vols.);Demonstration Program booklet;5 disks Price: $2,995;site license and multicopy discounts available Machine Specificity: IBM PC and most MS-DOS machines;multi-user version available for DEC VAX-11 under ULTRIX-32 System Requirements: 512K RAM required,640K recommended;5 MB hard drive required;MS-DOS 2.0 + Effectiveness: Excellent User-Friendliness: Good Documentation: Good

Abstract

Summary: GURU is an expensive but powerful relational database package with a variety of integrated features, including spreadsheet features, forms management, color graphics, text processing, report generation, remote communications, and expert systems. It emphasizes "artificial intelligence" (AI) features through its expert system ability to create rule-based prescriptive systems. The AI features include forward and backward chaining and explanation of its reasoning process step by step in expert systems consultations, and a natural language interface for its database operations. It can be used in either menu-driven or command language mode, or it can be programmed for unique user input screens. GURU is a highly complex integrated package particularly useful for social scientists using databases in conjunction with decision support systems and willing to invest substantial learning time in development of these systems.