History of Visual Basic

   Language developed in early 1960's at Dartmouth College:

B (eginner's)

A (All-Purpose)

S (Symbolic)

I (Instruction)

C (Code)

     

·         Answer to complicated programming languages (FORTRAN, Algol, Cobol ...).  First timeshare language.

·         In the mid-1970's, two college students write first Basic for a microcomputer (Altair) - cost $350 on cassette tape.  You may have heard of them:  Bill Gates and Paul Allen!

·         Every Basic since then essentially based on that early version.  Examples include:  GW-Basic, QBasic, QuickBasic.

     

   Visual Basic was introduced in 1991.

·         Some Features of Visual Basic

·          Full set of objects - you 'draw' the application

·          Lots of icons and pictures for your use

·          Response to mouse and keyboard actions

·          Clipboard and printer access

·          Full array of mathematical, string handling, and graphics functions

·          Can handle fixed and dynamic variable and control arrays

·          Sequential and random access file support

·          Useful debugger and error-handling facilities

·          Powerful database access tools

·          ActiveX support

·          Package & Deployment Wizard makes distributing your applications simple

Visual Basic 6.0 versus Other Versions of Visual Basic

·         The original Visual Basic for DOS and Visual Basic For Windows were introduced in 1991.

·         Visual Basic 3.0 (a vast improvement over previous versions) was released in 1993.

·         Visual Basic 4.0 released in late 1995 (added 32 bit application support).

·          

·         Visual Basic 5.0 released in late 1996.  New environment, supported creation of ActiveX controls, deleted 16 bit application support.

·          Visual Basic 6.0 - some identified new features of Visual Basic 6.0:

     

·          Faster compiler

·          New ActiveX data control object

·          Allows database integration with wide variety of applications

·          New data report designer

·          New Package & Deployment Wizard

·          Additional internet capabilites

16 Bits versus 32 Bits

·         Applications built using the Visual Basic 3.0 and the 16 bit version of Visual Basic 4.0 will run under Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups, Windows NT, or Windows 95

·         Applications built using the 32 bit version of Visual Basic 4.0, Visual Basic 5.0 and Visual Basic 6.0 will only run with Windows 95 or Windows NT (Version 3.5.1 or higher).

·         In this class, we will use Visual Basic 6.0 under Windows 95 OR higher version, recognizing such applications will not operate in 16 bit environments.