PB/DLL

What is PB/DLL?

PB/DLL is a 32-bit Native Windows compiler, by PowerBasic Inc.
Create either stand-alone executables, or Windows DLLs which can be called from many 32-bits Windows programming languages: PB/DLL and PB/CC (of course) as well as Visual Basic, VisualC++, Delphi, et cetera.

The History Of PB/DLL

1995	-	The very first release: PB/DLL 1.0, a 16-bit DLL compiler.

1995	-	Registered users received a free update, PB/DLL 1.1.

----	-	PB/DLL 1.5 released, minor upgrade.

1997	-	Fasten your seatbelts! PB/DLL 2.0 and PB/DLL 5.0 are released simultaneously. Version 2.0 is 16-bits like its predecessors, while 5.0 compiles to native 32-bits code aimed at the Win95/NT market. The seemingly odd jump to 5.0 is not too hard to explain: Even though PB/DLL has no problems producing stand-alone executables, it has been marketed primarily as an add-on for Visual Basic. At the time of release, VB was also at version 5.0.
1999	-	PB/DLL 6.0 sees the light: Putting even more Power in BASIC! Major additions are DDT (Dynamic Dialog Tools), TCP/IP, COM, and Regular Expressions. The new release includes a copy of PB/DLL 2.0, to create 16-bits DLLs as well.

Why would I use PB/DLL?

PB/DLL is very diverse -- it can be used to write complete applications from scratch, as well as the aforementioned DLL's.
there are clear advantages of using a PowerBasic DLL with for instance a Visual Basic program. VB is good in visually designing your dialogs and such, but lacks significantly when it comes to processing power. It's basic structure, with its 1.4 MB of run-tim libraries make it slow and bloated. Simply move some of your VB numbercrunching into a PowerBasic DLL, and get significant speed increases.

The new Dynamic Dialog Tools which are included in version 6.0, make it much easier to create a complete, stand alone 32-bits windows application. Incredibly fast, and no run-time libraries whatsoever. You got to see it to believe it! :-)

Last Updated: 26 May 1999