Member Avatar for TeaGG

Dear all
I'm trying to track down the name/existence of software that I used in 1999 to 'write' a financial reporting system - it was a curious mix of spreadsheet with programming capability... Would any of you know about this? Its name was similar (-ish) to Visual Basic, but it wasn't VB itself... The way I was asked to use it was to collate financially reported information from a series of European entities and then present them in a specific format for the client. The client was Synstar (pan European disaster recovery computing service), since taken over by HP.

The reason I'm interested in tracking it down - is (curiosity, it's really bugging me that I can't remember its name!!... and also) to find out if there is something equally as logical, easy to pick up and user friendly that I could use. I would like to be able to take data from individual small/medium sized businesses and then have a lovely usable (customised) report pop out neatly the other end... I realise that there will be cloud based software that exists for this... but I'm enthusiastic enough to want to try for myself... (and I'm supposed to be studying/have teenage children/husband/housework and this would be a lovely excuse to do something that is not related to those... ).

I'm primarily a finance person, with a science background... so not a programming/computing background... but I was fairly tech-savvy (when things were perhaps more simple?!)...

Any help you can provide or suggestions or links for me to look at/research would be gratefully received...

Many thanks indeed for reading this far! ;-)
TeaGG

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Dani AI

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Building on ’s VBA/RealBASIC guesses and /’s Visual FoxPro lead: your description of a “spreadsheet with programming” that sounded like Visual Basic most strongly points to Excel’s Visual Basic for Applications. VBA is a VB-derived language that runs inside Office apps (Excel/Access), not as a standalone product, which matches the “not VB itself” memory. (learn.microsoft.com)
Visual FoxPro is another plausible memory because many finance teams used it, but it is a database-centric IDE (forms/reports over DBF tables) rather than a spreadsheet, and Microsoft ended support for its final version in January 2015. (vfphelp.com)
RealBASIC (now Xojo) also fit that era and looked VB‑like, especially for Mac users, but it was a general app builder, not a spreadsheet tool. (xojo.com)

Ways to jog your memory quickly:

  • If you remember opening a “Visual Basic Editor” from Excel’s Developer tab, it was VBA inside Excel. (learn.microsoft.com)
  • If project/files had extensions like .scx (form), .mnx (menu), .pjx (project) or tables as .dbf, it was Visual FoxPro. (vfphelp.com)
  • If you recall the product name RealBASIC or later Xojo, that was a cross‑platform VB‑style IDE. (xojo.com)

For a modern remake of your 1999 consolidation-and-reporting workflow: start with Excel + Power Query to pull from many files/folders, clean/merge, and refresh on demand; add Power Pivot if you need a proper data model and measures. This keeps the familiar spreadsheet front‑end but upgrades the plumbing. (support.microsoft.com)
Prefer Mac-friendly or cloud? Google Sheets with Apps Script gives you a scriptable spreadsheet in the browser that can automate imports and generate formatted reports. (developers.google.com)

If any of the above rings a bell, share a file extension you remember or a UI clue (eg, “Visual Basic Editor” vs. “Form Designer”) and we can narrow it to the exact product.

Recommended Answers

All 7 Replies

Member Avatar for JamesCherrill

VisiCalc?

commented: Good question.... I'll now go off and have a nose around to see if I can find that and see if it sparks any memories... (!). Thank you. +0
Member Avatar for Dani

PowerBasic?
Visual Basic for Applications?
Microsoft Access?

I THINK I know what you’re talking about but the name escapes me. It sounded something like PowerBasic but not that?

commented: Excel back then with VBA could make some nice (for the era) reports and systems. To me Excel and some VBA seems to match what is asked here. +15
Member Avatar for Dani

... could it have been RealBASIC?

Member Avatar for TeaGG

Thank you for these options... I'm also trying to track down the person commissioning the work to ask... but can't find them at the moment!!!

I 'feel' (odd word for me - I tend to 'think' rather than believe or feel!!) that the name sounded like Visual Basic but wasn't that... IIRC it seemed at the time to be a play on those words... so I 'feel' it started with a V... but visicalc doesn't quite seem right... I do wish I'd kept better records of what I actually did... (!!)...

Thank you for the help... I really appreciate your time, attention, and efforts!!!

Member Avatar for acoustic24

Wasn't Visual Fox Pro was it ?

commented: Visual FoxPro could look like a spreadsheet and reports were built into its DNA. +15
Member Avatar for Scarint

When I was in IT, I had a client that ran their financials using Visual Fox Pro...it seems very much like what you describe.

Member Avatar for TeaGG

This sounds very familiar... I shall hunt around to see if I can find it and perhaps try to use it... though I'm usually on an Apple at home (microsoft at work though)... so it'll be an interesting experience....

Thank you very much for the suggestions...
;-)

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