Author Topic: Visual BASIC for OS/2  (Read 22817 times)

Jean-Yves

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Re: Visual BASIC for OS/2
« Reply #15 on: June 21, 2017, 12:14:46 pm »
No template that I can see - neither in the VABASIC folders nor in the main OS/2 templates folder.

Ouput of script attached.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2017, 12:37:28 pm by Jean-Yves »

xynixme

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Re: Visual BASIC for OS/2
« Reply #16 on: June 21, 2017, 11:27:37 pm »
Thanks, no registered VAB/2 classes too.

Perhaps the screendump and the CONFIG.SYS entries are also EDM/2-material, because there is no WPS installer. And, IIRC, the only obvious settings are one LIBPATH setting and SET VWDIR. There is some EXE which can modify CONFIG.SYS. I don't know what the purpose this EXE is, but it's not a clear installer and it's not the original full installer of VAB/2.

Olafur Gunnlaugsson

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Re: Visual BASIC for OS/2
« Reply #17 on: June 22, 2017, 02:13:28 pm »
Hi.

By the way does Microsoft Visual Basic for OS/2 exists? Or was it only a Win-16 version?
Some pictures of that, if exists, will be interesting too.

Regards

It exists as a native v1 Beta only that was shipped to those with (a then very expensive) Microsoft Developer Network subscription. Funnily enough the first edition of the manual for the VB v1 Win 16 still has sections written for OS/2 where the editor of the manual has forgotten to convert references from OS/2 to Windows references and even has a couple of screenshots from an OS/2 system where they had not had the time to replace it with a Win 3.x equivalent. The second edition of the v1 BV manual fixed this.

Olafur Gunnlaugsson

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Re: Visual BASIC for OS/2
« Reply #18 on: June 22, 2017, 02:18:32 pm »
I have a copy of VA-BASIC v.1 somewhere and could create an ISO if someone is desperate, however this is the initial release which is full of bugs, and not one of the later fixed versions. IBM removed the fix downloads after just a few weeks and I did not have the presence of mind to download it initially.

xynixme

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Re: Visual BASIC for OS/2
« Reply #19 on: June 23, 2017, 12:31:50 am »
If someone has the VAB files installed, but not the original installer, then the attached Rexx script should recreate the Sample folder. Most of the objects can be found there. The script uses the desktop instead of the object ID of a VAB folder, and the texts "x:\VABASIC" have to be edited to point to your main VABASIC directory. If you like the theme, then you can use QBASIC /EDIT to edit the file.

nathana

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Re: Visual BASIC for OS/2
« Reply #20 on: June 24, 2017, 11:35:51 am »
I am almost positive that I have a 60-day eval (expiring) version of VA for Basic for OS/2 on one of my DevCon disc sets.  I can't imagine anyone would have a problem with me distributing a timebombed evalulation version, so if anybody is reeeeeeeally interested, I'll dig up my discs...

If MS had a beta version of VB 1.0 for OS/2 that they canned before release (and it sounds like they did), surely this was targeted at OS/2 1.x PM and was 16-bit only.

-- Nathan

xynixme

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Re: Visual BASIC for OS/2
« Reply #21 on: June 24, 2017, 01:17:01 pm »
I have a 60-day eval (expiring) version of VA for Basic for OS/2 on one of my DevCon disc sets.  I can't imagine anyone would have a problem with me distributing a timebombed evalulation version

I've lost my copy of DevCon, but at least one of the DevCons is already available for download. This set should contain several Basics, including but not limited to VAB, so you don't even have to consider distributing yours.

xynixme

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Re: Visual BASIC for OS/2
« Reply #22 on: June 25, 2017, 11:52:16 am »
Unverified, answering the underlying original question: https://archive.org/details/IBMDeveloperConnectionForOS25CDs

Highwinder

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Re: Visual BASIC for OS/2
« Reply #23 on: September 30, 2017, 09:34:11 am »
IBM VisualAge for BASIC for OS/2 v1.2 can be downloaded here on this abandonware site:

http://vetusware.com/download/Visual%20Age%20for%20Basic%20_Client%20_%20Server_%20-%20OS2%20version%201.2/?id=10628

Note that it seems to work fine on OS/2 v2.1, Warp3/4, and eCS v1x and 2x.  Also installed and ran fine on AcraOS 5.0.1.

Note that the product will not run until after you've rebooted due to critical paths being added to config.sys.

This is a real find, as this is available NOWHERE else on the net and it's the v1.2 bug-fixed version.

I dug through my archives of old IBM BESTeam distribution CDs from the 90s and found all the documentation and manuals for this product (in postscript form)- an exciting discovery that had me darned near dancing around the room.  I will be converting all the manuals to PDF files and uploading the whole "IBM VisualAge for BASIC for OS/2 v1.2" package to abandonware web sites and will be including instructions and all documentation along with the full, non-demo v1.2 installer of both client and server editions.  It will be in the form of a zipped .ISO file.

As a Visual Basic developer and enthusiast, I think this is a great product worthy of resurrection now that all the necessary components have been assembled into a complete, updated package that includes everything and works on all versions and variatiosn of OS/2 from 2.1 on.  I will post the package on the same abandonware web site linked above (vetusware).
« Last Edit: November 28, 2017, 09:36:30 pm by Robert Hodges »

Pete

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Re: Visual BASIC for OS/2
« Reply #24 on: September 30, 2017, 05:49:28 pm »
Hi Robert

I just downloaded VAB from the url you supplied.

I have only installed the client and can state that it runs on ArcaOS so would expect it to run on ecS2.1 - will try to install to eCS2.1 later to test.


Regards

Pete

Pete

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Re: Visual BASIC for OS/2
« Reply #25 on: October 02, 2017, 04:04:17 am »
Hi Robert

Installed and briefly tested on my eCS2.1 system - works fine.


Regards

Pete

Andy Willis

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Re: Visual BASIC for OS/2
« Reply #26 on: October 04, 2017, 06:11:35 am »
Hi Robert

I just downloaded VAB from the url you supplied.

I have only installed the client and can state that it runs on ArcaOS so would expect it to run on ecS2.1 - will try to install to eCS2.1 later to test.


Regards

Pete

It most likely "upgraded" your SOM for you.  I discovered this when my Lucide starting crashing when trying to open PDFs. 
I do not recall what all it replaced but here are the files and dates of the original files:
9-06-00  12:43          76,878      0   ___A_  rexxsom.dll
6-30-99  16:33          92,009      0   ___A_  SOM.DLL
6-30-99  19:17         438,894     75   ___A_  SOMD.DLL
6-30-99  19:17          60,020     76   ___A_  SOMEM.DLL
6-30-99  16:34          87,628      0   ___A_  SOMIR.DLL
6-30-99  16:34          23,106      0   ___A_  SOMS.DLL
6-30-99  16:34          32,878      0   ___A_  SOMSEC.DLL
6-30-99  19:17          39,027     76   ___A_  SOMST.DLL
6-30-99  19:17          33,477     78   ___A_  SOMST32.DLL
6-30-99  16:34          30,484      0   ___A_  SOMTC.DLL
6-30-99  16:34          81,044      0   ___A_  SOMU.DLL
6-30-99  16:34          81,700      0   ___A_  SOMUC.DLL

Doug Bissett

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Re: Visual BASIC for OS/2
« Reply #27 on: October 04, 2017, 05:25:37 pm »
Quote
It most likely "upgraded" your SOM for you

If it is anything like other IBM software packages, it probably added a bunch of paths, and other things, FIRST in the sequence (in CONFIG.SYS). Meaning that modern versions will be blocked, and the system will try to use the ancient versions that the packages supply.

Pete

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Re: Visual BASIC for OS/2
« Reply #28 on: October 04, 2017, 08:10:33 pm »
Hi All

Installing the VA Basic client does not seem to have changed much here; no change to som*.dll files except a few added, the only changes to config.sys are adding VAB directories to the end of Path and Libpath and putting the VAB SOM.IR at the start of SET SOM - there does not seem to be any duplicate files installed.


Regards

Pete

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Re: Visual BASIC for OS/2
« Reply #29 on: November 28, 2017, 09:50:13 pm »
Please see my original post above with the download link.  I made significant updates to it.  namely:

1.  I have found the original dev and reference manuals that accompanied the product and have converted them to PDF files.
2.  I am creating an .ISO file that contains the client/server version installers, dev and reference manuals, and instructions.
3.  It is IBM VisualAge for BASIC v1.2 for OS/2, which is an RTM full-install bug-fixed version (no patching required).
4.  It will be uploaded to the abandonware web site called "vetusware".
5.  I should have it uploaded by the end of November, 2017.

I believe that this is a great tool that deserves another chance and should excite any Visual Basic developer, since it is MS VB syntax that produces 32-bit native OS2 code, and has the ability to directly import Microsoft Visual Basic 3/4 projects.   You can even use real VB in WIN-OS2 to create a VB project and just use IBM's VAB/2 as the compiler (my chosen strategy). 

This is a VERY exciting upload to provide to the OS/2 community because it resurrects a potentially great dev tool that was never given a chance.  This is pretty much Microsoft Visual Basic for OS/2, folks.
« Last Edit: November 28, 2017, 09:59:46 pm by Robert Hodges »