A trip down memory lane (1 Viewer)

[pekajo]

Ye GODS and little fishes, THAT is a blast from the past. You've got ME beat, Colin, 'cause I didn't start with Access until 2.0 came out. Before that I was a Paradox for DOS user. (Before that, DEC Datatrieve, but THAT is a whole other story!)

You may remember Easytreive ! (spelling?)

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Yes, I worked with Easytrieve, but it was abysmally limited as I recall. The U.S. Navy used the "Easy" package which included word processing, spreadsheets, and Easytrieve as a fancy index-card system. Then after a little while, MS Office cropped up and they switched. Some reason related to the fact that EasyX was maintained by a smaller company than Microsoft so was a higher risk factor.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

Incidentally whenever I have to repair A2003 (seemingly after a PC restart), it now objects to Foxpro, but allows me to ignore the error and complete the repair. I just did it to see. It's "error configuring ODBC source for visual foxpro"

 

[Pat Hartman]

Hi Colin,
For some reason, this thread is trending. I missed it the first time. Do you think any of the sample databases that came with this version are worth converting? I know it is a multi-stop trip. But the flash cards sample might be useful and also maybe the business forms. I really hated the style MS switched to for samples around A2K and that is what all the samples I find use. They haven't been updated since they were created.

 

[isladogs]

To be honest I haven't spent much time looking at those sample databases in over 20 years.
Personally, I would think not as any code is in Access Basic.
How well the code will convert to VBA I can't say.

I'm happy to upload all the samples but IIRC you would need Access 95 to convert them

I'd suggest looking at samples from A97 or thereabouts

 

[Pat Hartman]

I'd suggest looking at samples from A97 or thereabouts

As Access matured, the samples degenerated as did the documentation. Both are close to useless at this point. I've looked at all the samples and there are only a couple of very old samples that are actually worthwhile. Databases like Solutions are great, especially when you run them on a old PC so you can get the help that goes along with the samples. I would love to convert it but I don't have any way of recovering the text from the help file. MS has deprecated the help system that was used to build it.

Here's some of what Solutions contains:

 

[isladogs]

I used to have that help system but its long since gone. Pity as it took me ages to get the hang of using it.

 

[Pat Hartman]

There seems to be a move afoot to redo Northwinds. Solutions and some of the others like it would be much more useful to newbies.

 

[isladogs]

Yes i know about Northwinds 2.0. I was invited to participate but declined as I have hardly looked at it in over 20 years. I can’t remember Solutions. Which version did that come with?

 

[Pat Hartman]

I think it was 97 or 2000

 

[isladogs]

OK I'll take a look.
Just to check, do you still have a copy or, if not, do you want it...if I can find it?
I think the reason this thread got resurrected is because someone wanted a copy of the Sweets.mdb from v1.0 which I was able to supply.

 

[Pat Hartman]

I have a copy but the help no longer works.

 

[Cotswold]

In 1983 I started on a Sirius with two MASSIVE 1.2Mb floppy disks and 128Kb of Ram. All at the bargain price I recall of somewhere around £2,300! ( Just to give some perspective, I could buy a one year old Ford Cortina for about double that, but way cheaper than an Apple II) Filenames and fieldnames at a maximum of eight and only a root folder available on A:, or B: No spaces and I think they all had to be uppercase as well. Screens of just 80 characters wide and 24 lines and needing a table of dozens of printer codes. All good fun

Short time on Basic until I hit the maximum filesize. Then dBASEII, then on to Clipper87. Which I was very reluctant to abandon and use Access97. If it wasn't for customer pressure about wanting Windows and "needing" to use a mouse, I'd still be happily pumping out Clipper software.

Have to say though, I could never see why Microsoft thought that Northwind was a good example of Access programming, or any other programming for that matter. I'd certainly not like to put my name to it. Mind you they don't get any better, I've seen recent example of a template of theirs with /'s and \'s in very long fieldnames. I cannot see why they'd indicate to a new user that, that is Ok in a naming system.

Looking back, happy days indeed. But the reality was that the hours were long, very long. All in a good cause though.

 

[AngelSpeaks]

You may remember Easytreive ! (spelling?)

We used to call it Sleasytrieve.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

With regard to templates, MS produced the fantastic Dharamsala Tea inventory database, and a load more.

When they moved from A2003 to A2007 (might have been A2010 or even A365), the whole collection disappeared.
It was when they deprecated that 8 items switchboard, and switched to macro-driven stuff.

I had a link to the new location of those samples, but I have mislaid that now, although I did secure the inventory database I mentioned before, and I have never looked at subsequent samples, because I am not really interested in a lot of the "improvements" that were incorporated.

 

[GPGeorge]

In 1983 I started on a Sirius with two MASSIVE 1.2Mb floppy disks and 128Kb of Ram. All at the bargain price I recall of somewhere around £2,300! ( Just to give some perspective, I could buy a one year old Ford Cortina for about double that, but way cheaper than an Apple II) Filenames and fieldnames at a maximum of eight and only a root folder available on A:, or B: No spaces and I think they all had to be uppercase as well. Screens of just 80 characters wide and 24 lines and needing a table of dozens of printer codes. All good fun

Short time on Basic until I hit the maximum filesize. Then dBASEII, then on to Clipper87. Which I was very reluctant to abandon and use Access97. If it wasn't for customer pressure about wanting Windows and "needing" to use a mouse, I'd still be happily pumping out Clipper software.

Have to say though, I could never see why Microsoft thought that Northwind was a good example of Access programming, or any other programming for that matter. I'd certainly not like to put my name to it. Mind you they don't get any better, I've seen recent example of a template of theirs with /'s and \'s in very long fieldnames. I cannot see why they'd indicate to a new user that, that is Ok in a naming system.

Looking back, happy days indeed. But the reality was that the hours were long, very long. All in a good cause though.

If you have any specific suggestions to improve Northwind, it would be helpful.

 

[isladogs]

Can I suggest that if there is to be a revised version of Northwind, it should include a return to good practice:
a) no spaces/special characters in table/query/field names
b) removal of all MVFs and attachment fields
c) no table level lookup fields ... (etc)

 

[GPGeorge]

Can I assume the existing remit for Northwind 2.0 includes a return to good practice:
a) no spaces/special characters in table/query/field names
b) removal of all MVFs and attachment fields
c) no table level lookup fields ... (etc)

Thanks for the input, Colin.

 

[isladogs]

More details about the forthcoming Northwind 2.0 are now available in this thread

The Northwind 2 Project

Microsoft is sponsoring a community project to modernize Northwind. A small team of people, including Access MVP's Tom Van Stiphout and Crystal Long, along with George Young and myself have gone through the first phase, developing a set of specs for "Northwind 2". Tom and George Y made the...

www.access-programmers.co.uk

The thread includes a link where you can make suggestions / provide feedback on the project brief etc.

 

[isladogs]

For info, I've just added an updated & significantly extended version of this thread as a new web article:

A Trip Down Memory Lane

This article reviews the main changes in Access features and appearance from its first release in 1992 through to the current day.

www.isladogs.co.uk

The thread covers all versions of Access from 1.0 through to the current day with screenshots of each and a summary of the main changes in each version