May 9, 2026
Visual Basic, visual chaos
I'm writing a history of Visual Basic, Chapter 1 is up
A nostalgic coding history drops — and the comments instantly roast the art and the confusing layout
TLDR: A writer has started an ambitious history of Visual Basic, the beginner-friendly Microsoft software maker from the 1990s, with a first chapter focused on its roots and overlooked creators. Readers love the idea, but the comments exploded over a badly received AI banner image and a layout some found bizarrely hard to navigate.
A writer has launched Chapter 1 of a big history of Visual Basic, the old Microsoft tool that helped a generation of people make software with buttons, windows, and drag-and-drop screens instead of pure code wizardry. The project promises a more human story: not just the usual Bill Gates mythology, but the overlooked people behind the product, from Alan Cooper to the lesser-known team members who rarely get more than a footnote. In other words: less corporate legend, more backstage drama.
And yes, readers are interested — but the comment section immediately found blood in the water. The loudest reaction was not about programming history at all, but the banner image, which one commenter absolutely torched as a "POOR AI IMAGE", zooming in on misspelled words like a forensic art detective. Another mini-scandal? People couldn’t even figure out how to read the thing. One frustrated reader basically shouted, where is part one?, saying the article advertised a chapter that was weirdly hard to click into. Ouch.
Still, the mood wasn’t all knives out. Some readers were genuinely excited and nostalgic, remembering Visual Basic as a practical school tool and shouting out rival products from the era. Others started tossing in extra lore, like requests for the forgotten MacBasic saga and competitors such as RealBasic. So the vibe is clear: people want this history badly — they just also want better navigation, less cursed artwork, and maybe a tiny bit less accidental chaos.
Key Points
- •The author has published Chapter 1 of a planned history of Visual Basic, focusing on the product’s lineage and the people who built it.
- •Chapter 1 covers 1964 to 1992, from Dartmouth BASIC through Visual Basic 1.0 for Windows in 1991 and Visual Basic 1.0 for MS-DOS in 1992.
- •The chapter includes Microsoft’s BASIC product lineage and argues that retaining the BASIC brand was strategically important by 1990.
- •The article identifies Alan Cooper’s Tripod and Microsoft’s Project Thunder as major inputs into the creation of Visual Basic.
- •The broader project is explicitly scoped to emphasize undercovered developers and contributors rather than retelling well-known Microsoft executive history.