[1] The origins of Miva Script began in 1993 when David Haldy and Joseph Austin built the first version of HTMLScript.
The first version was written in the programming language Perl, which was called Logic Enhanced HTML (LEHTML).
Joseph Austin wrote a wrapper for it in the programming language C that let it start off as a root process and then downgrade itself immediately to the ownership and permissions of the owner of the script file.
Joseph Austin called the result HTMLScript and registered the name with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
Joseph Austin, Troy McCasland and Derek Finley were the founders of the company called HTMLScript Corporation.
In 1997, Jon Burchmore extensively rewrote the language to make it more syntactically consistent, although the new engine supported both old HTMLScript and new (named mivascript) syntaxes.
Jon Burchmore rewrote HTMLScript with syntax that Joe developed with the help of SoftQuad, using the emerging XML standard.
[7] In versions numbered less than 4.0, Miva Merchant Empresa is a script interpreter available for web servers running *nix and Microsoft Windows operating systems.
The current version level 5.x added new language constructs, native SQL support, a new access-methodology for dbase3 tables, called MIVA-SQL, and a new templating syntax that the Empresa virtual machine can compile on the fly.
Miva Merchant Mia is a version of the Empresa engine designed to run on a Windows PC as a localhost server watching a specified port, usually 8000 or 8080.
Miva Merchant Script Compiler[9] was introduced in mid-2002, claiming to offer better performance and the closure of application source code.
Compilability required some changes to the language, with support for the old HTMLScript syntax and macros evaluated at runtime (often considered a security risk) dropped.
Storemorph™ pages allow modular components created in MivaScript, to be added to a template extending its capabilities.