Extending VB6

[dilettante]

UAC was only an issue for poorly written applications and shabby installation techniques. Least User Access was already a thing long before UAC enforced it, going back at least as far as NT 3.51 days.

You can still run 16-bit "DOS" programs on Windows 10 as long as you don't drink the 64-bit Kool-Aid. QuickBasic, PDS 7.x, and VB-DOS can all be used today though I'm not sure why you'd want to.

[Niya]

You can still run 16-bit "DOS" programs on Windows 10 as long as you don't drink the 64-bit Kool-Aid. QuickBasic, PDS 7.x, and VB-DOS can all be used today though I'm not sure why you'd want to.

Oh it's about so much more than whether you can run them or not. Lets look at some old tech and why they actually died. I'll be talking about those I've experienced personally.

Stacker

What was it?

It was a driver that essentially doubled your hard drive's capacity by transparently compressing files when they were written to disk. It would also transparently decompress when you read files.

Why did it die?

Hard drive capacities starting started outpacing our ability to exhaust it. Also, Windows has the option built in to transparently compress files on the hard disk. There is no need for 3rd party software to do this anymore.

EMM386

What was it?

It was to memory what Stacker was to hard drives. It was used to try and squeeze every ounce of extra memory you can out of a DOS system.

Why did it die?

Same reason as Stacker. We no longer have a 640 KB limit with which to execute applications like we did with DOS. We have gigabytes of memory to play with today. EMM386 is completely unneeded today.

PC Tools

What was it?

It was a one of the best diagnostic programs I've ever seen in the 90s. It has the ability to diagnose DOS computers for all kinds of problems but it was specifically excellent at dealing with data corruption on hard disks and floppy disks. It was what I would consider a must have in the 90s.

Why did it die?

Windows came with all of it's abilities built in and hardware today, especially storage tech, is so much more reliable. When was the last time you heard anyone talk about bad sectors?

Lantastic

What was it?

It was networking software. You used it to create LANs in the 90s.

Why did it die?

Windows came with multiple network stacks built in. Eventually network stacks became standard is all operating systems. There is no need for 3rd party software to provide this service anymore.

Smart Drive

What was it?

One of my personal favorites. It was an excellent piece of software that provided cached reads and writes to and from your hard disk. It was excellent at improving DOS applications that performed a lot of reading and writing to your hard disk. I very clearly remember being unable to play Mortal Kombat 2 without Smart Drive loaded because the game would constantly stutter as it was always reading from the hard disk. As soon as I loaded Smart Drive, it never stuttered at all. It was a very good piece of software.

Why did it die?

Windows now does this automatically for one thing. Secondly, we have massive amounts of memory today so even without cached reads, applications can still minimize the need to read from disk by keeping a large chunk of their data in memory. Remember in DOS, you only had around 640 KB to play with. Then of course we have flash memory now in SSD drives which are extremely fast.

Conclusion

The point I'm making here is that many times it takes the advancement of several key pieces of technologies to cause the obsolescence of other pieces of technology. This goes way beyond whether the software can be executed still. For VB6 and applications written in them to disappear, several factors have to conspire to render them obsolete. It's impossible to predict what those factors would be. Do you think in the 90s we could ever imagine having terabyte hard disks? Not needing something like Stacker was not something I could have ever imagined in the 90s.

[Episcopal]

Oh it's about so much more than whether you can run them or not. Lets look at some old tech and why they actually died. I'll be talking about those I've experienced personally.

Stacker

What was it?

It was a driver that essentially doubled your hard drive's capacity by transparently compressing files when they were written to disk. It would also transparently decompress when you read files.

Why did it die?

Hard drive capacities starting started outpacing our ability to exhaust it. Also, Windows has the option built in to transparently compress files on the hard disk. There is no need for 3rd party software to do this anymore.

EMM386

What was it?

It was to memory what Stacker was to hard drives. It was used to try and squeeze every ounce of extra memory you can out of a DOS system.

Why did it die?

Same reason as Stacker. We no longer have a 640 KB limit with which to execute applications like we did with DOS. We have gigabytes of memory to play with today. EMM386 is completely unneeded today.

PC Tools

What was it?

It was a one of the best diagnostic programs I've ever seen in the 90s. It has the ability to diagnose DOS computers for all kinds of problems but it was specifically excellent at dealing with data corruption on hard disks and floppy disks. It was what I would consider a must have in the 90s.

Why did it die?

Windows came with all of it's abilities built in and hardware today, especially storage tech, is so much more reliable. When was the last time you heard anyone talk about bad sectors?

Lantastic

What was it?

It was networking software. You used it to create LANs in the 90s.

Why did it die?

Windows came with multiple network stacks built in. Eventually network stacks became standard is all operating systems. There is no need for 3rd party software to provide this service anymore.

Smart Drive

What was it?

One of my personal favorites. It was an excellent piece of software that provided cached reads and writes to and from your hard disk. It was excellent at improving DOS applications that performed a lot of reading and writing to your hard disk. I very clearly remember being unable to play Mortal Kombat 2 without Smart Drive loaded because the game would constantly stutter as it was always reading from the hard disk. As soon as I loaded Smart Drive, it never stuttered at all. It was a very good piece of software.

Why did it die?

Windows now does this automatically for one thing. Secondly, we have massive amounts of memory today so even without cached reads, applications can still minimize the need to read from disk by keeping a large chunk of their data in memory. Remember in DOS, you only had around 640 KB to play with. Then of course we have flash memory now in SSD drives which are extremely fast.

Conclusion

The point I'm making here is that many times it takes the advancement of several key pieces of technologies to cause the obsolescence of other pieces of technology. This goes way beyond whether the software can be executed still. For VB6 and applications written in them to disappear, several factors have to conspire to render them obsolete. It's impossible to predict what those factors would be. Do you think in the 90s we could ever imagine having terabyte hard disks? Not needing something like Stacker was not something I could have ever imagined in the 90s.

Completion of completion of your pointed items. Microsoft killed them all.

[jg.sa]

G'Day Niya

This is a gr8 list, I did a lot of coding for Artisoft so have some experience with what happened to them.

Lantastic

What was it?

It was networking software. You used it to create LANs in the 90s.

They actually had a WAN ver. never released and one of the guys involved in this was years later paid approx. $300Mil for M$ trampling all over his IP for OS updates

Basically the Bosses at Art. had a meeting with Bill G. and he convinced them to work with M$ and it was all spin.

An internal Art. memo ( Not an email ) said Art. was going global with M$ and within a few years they were closing down offices like Sydney.

I would suggest that all the other products on this list ended up the same way, M$ standing on their throats.

If we deved a VB6 to C# processor then our codes bases could be set free. Because C# has more 'Default' events it is possible.

For my part my apps. are all about string manipulation and a API 'launcher', which is what VB is really good for.

I have seen this approach used twice in my career and both those companies ended up with offices all over the world.

[Niya]

G'Day Niya

This is a gr8 list, I did a lot of coding for Artisoft so have some experience with what happened to them.

They actually had a WAN ver. never released and one of the guys involved in this was years later paid approx. $300Mil for M$ trampling all over his IP for OS updates

Basically the Bosses at Art. had a meeting with Bill G. and he convinced them to work with M$ and it was all spin.

An internal Art. memo ( Not an email ) said Art. was going global with M$ and within a few years they were closing down offices like Sydney.

I would suggest that all the other products on this list ended up the same way, M$ standing on their throats.

That is some great info! I have so many fond memories of using Lantastic for multiplayer LAN gaming as a child in the DOS era! It really was a great piece of software. Made networking extremely easy.

As for what Microsoft did, I can't say I'm the least bit surprised. The general public tends to paint Bill Gates as this nerdy wimpy guy but when you really look into him and the things he has done, this guy was a ruthless business man. You don't become the richest man in the world by being a push over. You do it by being a conniving and ruthless conqueror.