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Frame from Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991) Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991)

Crapkai
Demos
YouTube
Cited on HN 4 times, 2020–2025, never outright recommended score 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

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.

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

“Visual Basic changed all that with point and drag and drop and you could make a GUI in a matter of minutes.” (HN, 2022)

4 citations · Demos

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@dvfjsdhgfv Oct 2020 Cites it
on HN thread Bill Gates introducing Windows 3.1 (video 60s)
What I find funny is that in the next video recommended to me [0] Gates demonstrates something we used to do daily in the 90s but the indistry still hasn't figured out how to do it properly with web technologies. [0] [this video]
Gates demos rapid GUI building the web still hasn't matched
@jbandela1 Jun 2022 Cites it
on HN thread Ask HN: Best dev tool pitches of all time?
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. [this video]
Revolutionary drag-and-drop Windows GUI building demo
@alberth Dec 2023 Cites it
on HN thread IDEs we had 30 years ago
VB6 was the only “low code / no code” tool that actually delivered on its promise. Bill Gates demoing it from 32-years ago. [this video]
Bill Gates demoing Visual Basic in 1991
@spwa4 Nov 2025 Cites it
on HN thread Vibe coding: What is it good for? Absolutely nothing
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. [this video] I mean, I know, we all used Delphi after trying it for a little bit, but still.
Bill Gates' 1991 Visual Basic introduction as precedent for no-developer promises

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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