Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991)

Crapkai · 2.1M views · 2016-05-23 · 3:00

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Overview

A short clip of Bill Gates demonstrating Visual Basic in 1991, showing drag-and-drop building of a Windows GUI.

On Hacker News

HN cites it as an example of rapid GUI development that modern tooling hasn't matched, and as precedent for promises of coding without developers.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2020–2025

Topics

Tech pioneers & interviews GUI, HCI & interface history History of computing

What people said

spwa4 · 2025-11 · Reference
Pfffft. People have been making solutions for "now we need no more developers" since at least Bill Gates 1991 introduction of Visual Basic. And frankly, Bill Gates showed easily 10x the charisma of Sam Altman and Sundar Pichai combined back then. [VIDEO] I mean, I know, we all used Delphi after trying it for a little bit, but still.
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alberth · 2023-12 · Reference
VB6 was the only “low code / no code” tool that actually delivered on its promise. Bill Gates demoing it from 32-years ago. [VIDEO]
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jbandela1 · 2022-06 · Reference
Another is Bill Gates Visual Basic 1.0 demo It was revolutionary. Before that, making a Windows GUI was pretty low level with calls to C APIs and callbacks and registrations. Visual Basic changed all that with point and drag and drop and you could make a GUI in a matter of minutes. [VIDEO]
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Sources

Video by Crapkai, played through YouTube.

HN Library · Source license

Data and selection notes

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