VB for DOS - Status? 2

[dilettante]

This is a wild question, and I decided to post it here because this is about the only place people are dealing with DOS Basic questions...

Does anybody know the status of VB for DOS 1.0, circa 1992?

In other words, can you buy a legit copy anywhere? Has MS put anything out about it becoming a non-product? As in, say, the product is so old it is now free to copy and use except for resale to make a buck off it?

I'd be glad to pay maybe $10 for a legitimate copy of "Pro."

The thing really IS pretty entertaining.

Thanks.

 

[qbasicking]

i don't think that VB will work for 1.0, I have 5.x and I can't find a version for it.
I don't think they even made VB until a few years ago. the evolution of MS versions of basic went BASICA-QBasic- and the VB

Since u use VB i'll ask you, what are the advantages of VB over qb? How big can your programs be? (kilobytes)

 

[dpaulson]

To qbasicking

I think he is looking for the first version of VB, which was called VB for DOS. Even though it is antiquated, it still is proprietary software. He may be fortunate enough to find it on eBay or something similar. As far as a solution to your problem, maybe VB for DOS would work for you. Since you are using MSDOS 5.0, it would be the only version you could run. I think all succeding versions of VB require windows. As far as how big your progects can get depends on available memory. You can download a free version of vb, CCE (control creation edition) from microsoft if you want to try it out. David Paulson

 

[dilettante]

VB for DOS 1.0 was actually released after VB for Windows 1.0!

What I find so entertaining about it is the way it tries to mimic a GUI environment in DOS by using character graphics. Yes, it supports a number of graphic modes like QBasic does.

I understand it was never very popular, and probably never got beyond version 1.0 - most information on converting VB for DOS programs to VB for Windows talks about converting VBDOS 1.0 to VBWin 3.0

I can't imagine anybody using it very seriously, and I have a number of special-purpose QBasic programs to perform various tasks that are still in use after many years.

It is almost like the spawn of some illicit liaison between VB for Windows and QBasic. I laughed for the first hour playing around with it.

Still, it has things a QB programmer would kill for. VBDOS Pro came on 7 floppies, I don't know about VBDOS Standard. VBWin 3.0 Standard took only 3 floppies.

I imagine it was pretty pricey when it came out.

 

[LegoArtist]

There is one site that has VBDOS for sale (I can't remember where off the top of my head) but they want something like $70 or $100 for it. I think they priced it by the quarter ounce .

I use VBDOS to write some of my DOS applications. I also use QuickBasic 4.5. It all depends on the UI I want and how easy it would be to idiot-proof the program using a particular language.

As far as MS making ANY old product free to download and use, I don't see that happening. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the only reason QBasic 1.1 came free with DOS was to give their later (at that time current) version of QuickBasic an edge over the competitors' BASICs. You know, "Hey, try QBasic 1.1 and then upgrade to QuickBasic 7.0. You'd already know how to use a lot of it." Sounds like MS, anyway.

 

[dilettante]

Well, thanks to all who replied. That's about what I expected. I'd REALLY be happy if they'd re-release it as-is along with the best versions of QuickBasic, C, and their DOS assembler as free-for-use software along the lines of VB5CCE. They could freeze support where it is by combining KB articles into ZIPs for each language and making those available too (while I'm dreaming).

And why not do the same with a solid version of MS-DOS while they're at it ;-) ?

But I suppose this is as likely as all the dead leaves I've raked up becoming a nutritious and tasty alternative to prime rib, baked potato, and steamed broccoli with a nice dinner salad, huh?

 

[dilettante]

One last note:

VB for DOS seems to run fine on WinXP as long as you start it within command.com instead of cmd.exe! If I start it in cmd.exe (the NT command line shell) and then try to load a program into the IDE using the File|Open menu item it hangs "loading and parsing" with 100% processor utilization.

But from command.com it seems to run perfectly. I haven't played with QB under WinXP, but I imagine results might be similar - cmd.exe doesn't "look" as much like DOS as the 16-bit shell does I guess.

 

[JimMorgan]

Sorry to be so late responding to this thread. I just found it.

I'm converting some legacy programs from Professional BASIC 7.1 to VB for DOS. I have one client who does not want to use Windows. I'm running Windows 2000 and BASIC 7.1 will not compile properly in this environment. I'm also using cmd.exe to compile and test the VBDOS programs. (There doesn't seem to be a viable way to run command.com in Win2K.)

A site that sells legitimate copies of legacy development tools is

http://www.emsps.com.

Some of these tools are not cheap because of their availability.

 

[dilettante]

Thanks for responding Jim, I'll check on that site refrence you gave.

BTW - Have you tried this little trick for PB 7.1 that I have found works with QBasic and the bootleg VB for DOS I looked at? It works under WinXP and might work under Win2K as well:

Don't use the standard NT shell cmd.exe, but instead open a command.com window. The easiest way to do this is to just use Start|Run and enter "command.com" as the program to run.

Then start up your "legacy" development tool and compiled products from there.

If it works you can finagle a .PIF that'll let you use desktop shortcuts or Start Menu shortcuts to these things.

Worth a shot, might save you some headaches.