Visual Basic, Visual Basic - is it good enough to write GUI packages on Pentium and Alpha?

Visual Basic - is it good enough to write GUI packages on Pentium and Alpha?

Author	Message
David Griff #1 / 8	Visual Basic - is it good enough to write GUI packages on Pentium and Alpha? Hi, We have been developing GUI-based products on SPARC(running Solaris) and Pentium (running Windows3) using Visix's Galaxy product to develop portable GUI code. Now we are looking to develop a product which runs on Pentium under NT and Dec Alph a under NT. Now Galaxy is very expensive. Is Visual Basic good enough for developing GUIs for Pentium and Dec Alphas which control application and driver code written in C? Does it produce solid enough applications, run fast enough, port easily to Alpha, etc? I would be delighted to be advised by you all, as I know virtually nothing about Visual Basic (apart from what I read in a bookstore) Thanks in advance, Martin Smith Highwater Designs Ltd.
Mon, 20 Jul 1998 03:00:00 GMT

Rod Hewi #2 / 8	Visual Basic - is it good enough to write GUI packages on Pentium and Alpha? Quote: >Hi, >We have been developing GUI-based products on SPARC(running Solaris) and >Pentium (running Windows3) using Visix's Galaxy product to develop portable >GUI code. Now we are looking to develop a product which runs on Pentium >under NT and Dec Alpha under NT. Now Galaxy is very >expensive. Is Visual Basic good enough for developing GUIs for Pentium and >Dec Alphas which control application and driver code written in C? Does it >produce solid enough applications, run fast enough, port easily to Alpha, >etc? >I would be delighted to be advised by you all, as I know virtually nothing >about Visual Basic (apart from what I read in a bookstore) VB4 is a wonderful way to front end code written in C/C++. I often find myself writing C++ code as an invisible OCX and then use VB to design the user-interface because it's so much simpler in VB. Currently VB4 comes in two flavours - 16 and 32 bit. Today you can run the 16-bit variety on the Pentium and Alpha because of the 286 emulator built into the RISC version of Windows NT. VB4 was quite recently released and one of the major differences between it and prior versions is that it is now written in C, rather than assembler so one can only hope for a native Alpha version. In the meantime, check out this month's Byte magazine - it has an article about the FX!32 Win32 emulator that DEC is working on. This will allow you to run x86 Win32 binaries on an Alpha without recompilation at around 70% of native performance. Go shell out the 100 quid for the Standard Edition - I don't know about the UK but in the US, Microsoft offers a 30 day money back guarantee, so if you don't like it take it back and if you do like it, take it back and get the Professional Edition. Regards, Rod
Tue, 21 Jul 1998 03:00:00 GMT

Jens Balchen J #3 / 8	Visual Basic - is it good enough to write GUI packages on Pentium and Alpha? the infinite reservoirs of wisdom: Quote: >port easily to Alpha? VB doesn't port to Alpha at all. Jens -- Everything I said are the opinions of someone else. I just cut-and-pasted. Jens Balchen jr. http://www.sn.no/~balchen
Tue, 21 Jul 1998 03:00:00 GMT

Chris S. Newe #4 / 8	Visual Basic - is it good enough to write GUI packages on Pentium and Alpha? Quote: >Hi, >We have been developing GUI-based products on SPARC(running Solaris) and >Pentium (running Windows3) using Visix's Galaxy product to develop portable >GUI code. Now we are looking to develop a product which runs on Pentium >under NT and Dec Alph a under NT. Now Galaxy is very VB only runs on Intel compatible platforms. Your out of luck w/ the Alpha chip. Univ of Missouri-Columbia Programmer/Analyst
Tue, 21 Jul 1998 03:00:00 GMT

Peter Mikalajun #5 / 8	Visual Basic - is it good enough to write GUI packages on Pentium and Alpha? Quote: >the infinite reservoirs of wisdom: >>port easily to Alpha? >VB doesn't port to Alpha at all. NT will run the app in emulation. You take a small performance hit, but for most things it is not noticable. It will certainly speed up your GUI proto-typing. Also MSVC++ 4.0 comes with a utility to convert VB's forms into *.rc files, though I haven't had time to play with it much. The combination of the 2, VB & MSVC++ will work just fine. Also, if you are looking to use the NT box for a Web Server, you might be even more interested in VB. It works just fine on NT for CGI, especially when used with Access databases for smaller things or Sequel Server for heavy duty databases. Peter Mikalajunas http://www.xnet.com/~kd9fb
Sat, 25 Jul 1998 03:00:00 GMT

Brian Bent #6 / 8	Visual Basic - is it good enough to write GUI packages on Pentium and Alpha? I'm curious if anyone here knows of a way to get the fixed disk's serial number? I know how to get the volume label, but I'd like to get the number. Also, generally, how safe is that to use to uniquely identify a PC? Basically I'm trying to keep track of where a certain program runs. Is there other information that I can get to with VB that would uniquely identify a machine? Thanks! Brian
Sat, 01 Aug 1998 03:00:00 GMT

GIJo #7 / 8	Visual Basic - is it good enough to write GUI packages on Pentium and Alpha? Quote: > I'm curious if anyone here knows of a way to get the fixed disk's > serial number? I know how to get the volume label, but I'd like > to get the number. > Also, generally, how safe is that to use to uniquely identify > a PC? I think you are asking for trouble. There's a whole new breed of removable fixed drives (Iomega's Zip and Jazz for example) that allow users to run programs from a removable media, or to swap the programs in and out to their faster fixed drive. We're talking average consumers, not just networks, since the Zip drive retails for under $200.
Sun, 02 Aug 1998 03:00:00 GMT

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