A trip down memory lane

The_Doc_Man said:
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!)
Click to expand...
You may remember Easytreive ! (spelling?)
 
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.
 
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"
 
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
 
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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.
 
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?
 
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.
 
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!(n) ( 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.
 
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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.
 
Cotswold said:
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!(n) ( 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.
Click to expand...
If you have any specific suggestions to improve Northwind, it would be helpful.
 
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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)
 
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isladogs said:
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)
Click to expand...
Thanks for the input, Colin.
 
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.
 
For info, I've just added an updated & significantly extended version of this thread as a new web article:
www.isladogs.co.uk

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 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
 
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Hi Colin / @isladogs !
Well done! That's a nice article.

I've got a couple of corrections and comments below.

Access 97
Source code control integration was already available for Access 97. - And it was *not* just Visual SourceSafe integration but MSSCCI integration. The real *integration* in Access is limited to the SaveAsText/LoadFromText methods. Anything beyond that is not directly integrated but provided by a PlugIn included in the Developer Edition of Access.

Access 2000
For Access 2000 you absolutely *must* mention the upgrade to VBA version 6, which was a major progress. - Unfortunately the last major progress VBA has ever seen.

Access 2003
Are you sure about ...
Linked Sharepoint lists - I might be mistaken, but I thought they were only added in 2007.
Digital signatures - Weren't they available previously already?

Access 2007
Reports - PDF output was not in A2007 immediately/directly. It was later provided by a PlugIn that hat to be installed separately. A2010 was the first version with integrated PDF output.

Access 2013
Visual source safe removed - Not Visual SourceSafe but MSSCCI (which was the integration API for VSS)
Access web apps (based on SQL Server) - They are not based on SQL Server but on Sharepoint!
Access Data Projects (ADP) deprecated - I think the word "deprecated" is not correctly used here. ADPs were not supported at all anymore.
(That applies to all occurrences of the word "deprecated" in that paragraph.)
 
A couple of subtleties.

Access Web Apps did store their data in tables SQL Azure Databases, one database per AWA. The apps themselves were stored, if that's the right word, on SharePoint. Unlike their predecessor, Access Web Databases, the forms ran only in a browser. Neither supported Reports, a big shortcoming, IMO, but not the only one. Access Data Macros in AWAs were implemented as SQL Azure Triggers and regular macros as stored procs (if I recall that bit correctly) and maybe as functions.

I have to verify, but I do think we had the ability to link to SP lists in A2003. Now, I wonder where I left that A2003 VM....
 
GPGeorge said:
A couple of subtleties.

Access Web Apps did store their data in tables SQL Azure Databases, one database per AWA. The apps themselves were stored, if that's the right word, on SharePoint. Unlike their predecessor, Access Web Databases, the forms ran only in a browser. Neither supported Reports, a big shortcoming, IMO, but not the only one. Access Data Macros in AWAs were implemented as SQL Azure Triggers and regular macros as stored procs (if I recall that bit correctly) and maybe as functions.

I have to verify, but I do think we had the ability to link to SP lists in A2003. Now, I wonder where I left that A2003 VM....
Click to expand...
SP Lists in A2003. The answer appears to be "yes or no". A2003 offers a link to "Windows SharePoint Services", but refuses an MS365 SP site, so I'm not sure what the full answer would be.

1651675194027.png
 
Thanks for the feedback Philipp/George - very helpful
I knew there would be errors & omissions as, although I have all the old versions, I haven't made much use of most of them in recent years.

Some of the information was taken from the FMS article Microsoft Access Version Features and Differences Comparison Matrix (fmsinc.com) (which does have a couple of errors) but a lot of it was based on my own recollections of each version

I will go through each of the points you raised later, make amendments / add info where necessary ...and re-check the questions raised
As I understood it, Access Web Apps were based on Sharepoint Lists in A2010 but changed to use SQL Server in A2013.
The MS article What's new in Access 2013 (microsoft.com) supports that as well

1651675417025.png

I only ever used the A2010 version of Access Web Apps. I gave up on them due to performance issues and the lack of reports.

As well as adding the VBA6 info, I'll also add that A2010 onwards have been supplied with VBA7 - needed for 64-bit versions

The A2003 Help definitely shows Sharepoint as being supported.

1651676033818.png


Thanks again. Will do some more checking & may respond again later....but first I have an Access Europe meeting in 2 hours @18:00 UK time.
Hope you can join us.
 
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