Visual BASIC 1 Introduction

Computer processors only speak machine code

Assembly Language Assembly language was used as a short hand for machine code Early programs were very difficult to write and required in-depth knowledge of the processor MOV R1, X MOV R2, Y ADD R1, R2 MOV X, R1

High-Level Languages High Level Languages were developed to make programming easier Special programs called compilers converted these high level languages to machine code

Fortran FORTRAN was the first high level language Used by scientists and engineers to do calculations FORmula TRANslator

High Level Languages are machine independent High Level Languages can be independent of specific processors The same program can be re-compiled to work on different machines No need to learn a new language to program a new processor C Compiler for Mac C Compiler for PC PC Machine Code Mac Machine Code C Program

Some languages were developed for specific purposes FORTRAN for scientific and engineering calculations COBOL for business and banking PROLOG for artificial intelligence

Other languages were designed to be used for general purposes BASIC: Beginners’ All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code Pascal: named after Blaise Pascal C

Visual BASIC Visual Basic (VB) is a programming environment from Microsoft It is used to build applications that run on the Microsoft Windows operating system

Interfaces

In the beginning … Computers were programmed by re- arranging the connections of wires into sockets Output was lights and numbers

Punched Cards & Printers Eventually punched cards could be used as input Output was to printers

Monitors & Keyboard Computers started to look more like those we see today Terminals to a mainframe Monitor & keyboard Command Line Interface

Personal Computers Enough processing power to fit on a desk Monitor & Keyboard Command Line Interface MS-DOS

GUI & Mouse 1973 The mouse was a very important development Xerox PARC’s Alto computer had a 3- button mouse, a bit mapped display, and windows

Xerox Star 1981 Double-clickable icons Overlapping windows Dialog boxes 1024 x 768 monochrome display

1983 Apple Lisa Pull-down menus

Popularized Graphical Interface 1984 Apple Macintosh

1990 Microsoft Windows 3.0

1995 Microsoft Windows 95 Similar to the MS Windows we have today

Visual BASIC

Visual BASIC takes care of all the Windows interface issues and allows the programmer to concentrate on more important things

Interface Controls VB provides controls that look and behave like standard MS windows interface elements

VB Interface Controls We will learn how to program these controls to make simple Windows applications