[jemmyw]

I don't recall it being particularly esoteric. There were libraries to call various databases. In my first job I converted a vb6 application from Foxpro to SQL server. I was just getting into Ruby on Rails at the time and wrote a COM library the the data layer that was somewhat like activerecord, and ended up using it from ruby scripts. Fun times. Just looked it up and the software still seems to be being sold 20 years later.