alt Hacker NewsI'm writing a history of Visual Basic, Chapter 1 is up
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My very first purchase on eBay was to buy a used copy of Visual Basic 6 Enterprise Edition sometime while I was in school.
Then for a period of time I lost the physical CD it came with, and couldn’t install it anymore on a new system. Some time later I remember finding the CD at the bottom of some box of random stuff and being so happy - it was scratched up and didn’t reliably install, but I think I managed to burn a copy of it onto a new disk complete with inkjet printed sticky disk label that resembled the original disk.
Must had been mid/late 90s I think.
Had so much fun making stuff in VB back then.
Any time VB comes up I repeat my same wishlist item. I would love for Microsoft to open source it, in any way, shape or form. I would love for the community to take a crack at adding things to VB6 like bugfixes, any missing features (my understanding is they don't own everything about VB6) and just overall general improvements, imagine VB6 with threading. I know its ancient, but it can still produce a native GUI application effortlessly.
You might want to mention the comedy series Microsoft used to run on MSDN. I think it was called “The .NET Show” or “VBTV”. It featured characters like the “VB Rapper” and “Head in a Box” (Ari and Chris). It was genuinely funny and they made at least a few episodes. I loved Microsoft back in those days. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any trace of it online now. This was really long ago - around 2002, I believe.
Why on earth would you use an AI-generated image [1] (let me be clear: POOR AI IMAGE) for the banner of this project?
If you're going to use genai, you need to make sure it actually looks acceptable. Do at least one careful pass over it before publishing. Just look at the details:
- The text on the book spines doesn’t even spell “Microsoft” correctly.
- Dartmouth is spelled "Darmouth". SIGH.
- The screenshot on the CRT monitor doesn't remotely resemble any version of Visual Basic I’ve ever used and I’ve been using it since Visual Basic for DOS.
Using an image like this sets the tone and impression for the entire book going forward. Right now, that first impression isn’t good.
[1] - https://evilgeniuslabs.ca/uploads/content/2026/05/6fd5a7b327...
I have a lot of fond memories of Visual Basic for MS-DOS 1.0.
I remember saving up for it at high school with my student discount. From memory it was about $120.
Much appreciated. VB6 was my first attempt at learning Win32 programming. I’ve written so many tools and games with it; it even helped me land my first job. A true golden age.
One thing which I'd be interested in being contextualized is the story of MacBasic:
https://www.folklore.org/MacBasic.html
and how other competing products such as RealBasic (somewhere I have a book on it) factored in.
I hope somebody writes a history of Visual FoxPro as well.
Excited to read the rest of this! Keep it up
Excellent Idea :)
VB was practical and useful at the time, especially as a learning tool in school. I enjoyed testing the competitors that arose to emulate its abilities, including RapidQ Basic, Envelope Basic (a.k.a Phoenix Object Basic), some of which are documented here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC
I think it would be cool to see a Documentary on programming languages, e.g. their history, rivalries, successes and downfalls, of the 80s, 90s and 2000s. If it is made correctly, with humor, it could be entertaining, perhaps even profitable.
Ah yes, Mcosoft ΓΛAX and Microsoft Marl. Groundbreaking products that paved the way for Visual Basic, Visual Studio, and beyond.
AI slop.
This sounds great but I’m genuinely unable to figure out how to get to part one.
Not the thumbnail. Not the pink text “A History of Visusl Basic”. Not the number one on the list of chapters. Not the chapter ousted at the very bottom.
The next button is for a different article.
How am I supposed to navigate to the thing the article is advertising to me? It’s a very strange decision not to make it really easy with a strong call to action or obvious link.